The “Twitter Files” releases continue to show the federal government’s deep and here-to-fore unknown involvement with suppressing the speech of the platform’s subscribers.
On Friday, the latest batch of information revealed that communication between the FBI and Twitter executives led to the social media platform taking down selected political speech. New majority owner of Twitter Elon Musk has allowed a small group of hand-selected journalists access to the company’s insider emails and other communications, which have revealed information embarrassing to some federal agencies, especially the Department of Justice.
It’s no wonder that liberals such as Rep. Adam Schiff have gone after Musk publicly. They have a lot to worry about.
“Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” independent journalist Matt Taibbi wrote early in the Tweet thread that was titled, “The Twitter Files, Part Six TWITTER, THE FBI SUBSIDIARY.”
“2. The #TwitterFiles are revealing more every day about how the government collects, analyzes, and flags your social media content,” Taibbi continued. “3. Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.”
“Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.”
“Some are mundane,” Taibbi wrote, “like San Francisco agent Elvis Chan wishing Roth a Happy New Year along with a reminder to attend “our quarterly call next week.” Others are requests for information into Twitter users related to active investigations.”
Taibbi continued: “a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.”
The FBI’s social media-focused task force, known as FTIF, created in the wake of the 2016 election, swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds, Taibbi wrote in his Twitter report.
Taibbi continued: “Federal intelligence and law enforcement reach into Twitter included the Department of Homeland Security, which partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content.”
It’s no secret the government analyzes bulk data for all sorts of purposes, everything from tracking terror suspects to making economic forecasts, he wrote. “The #TwitterFiles show something new: agencies like the FBI and DHS regularly sending social media content to Twitter through multiple entry points, pre-flagged for moderation.”
Read Matt Taibbi’s report thread here.
Meanwhile, journalists have gone ballistic after Musk suspended the accounts of those who have provided real-time tracking of his private jet, which imperiled his child’s life. Musk said on Twitter that accounts that dox people will be suspended. Doxxing is a form of online harassment and intentionally inviting harassment and endangerment of individuals by publishing their addresses, phone numbers, and exact whereabouts.
Even Rep. Schiff couldn’t resist criticizing Musk for suspending some journalists who doxxed Musk’s family.
“Elon Musk calls himself a free speech absolutist, to justify turning a blind eye to hatred and bigotry on Twitter. But when journalists report unfavorable news, they are banned without warning. The devotion to free speech is apparently not that absolute. But the hypocrisy is,” Schiff wrote.
The leftist who created the “ElonJets,” tracking account attempted to extort Musk on CNN, saying he would leave Musk alone in exchange for $50,000.
If you are surprised by these revelations, then you:
1. Clearly face hopeless intellectual challenges.
2. Are a card carrying liberal.
3. Both of the above are true.
Events of the past seven years have shown the need for legislation to rein in the FBI. The James Comey excusal of Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information and emails was essentially a declaration that “we-can-do-whatever-we-want-and-there-is-nothing-you-can-do-about-it”. The Russiagate stuff illustrated that the mixing of counter-espionage and law enforcement functions is very toxic. The Michigan kidnapping cases confirmed that limits on methods and means in law enforcement are necessary. The Twitter files may include all of these problems.
Despite the faux-innocent protestations of Director Christopher Wray, I am inclined to think the FBI are a bunch of crooks. The level of accountability within the agency appears to be zilch. The abuses continue and take on new forms. It remains to be seen if Republicans in Congress can force changes. Very specific amendments to Title 18 of the US Code must be drafted, debated and enacted into law. Sadly, enough elected representatives that call themselves Republicans can likely be bought off to block meaningful reform. I am not optimistic.
I’m not surprised ? by the suppression.
When it comes to corruption, nobody beats the DOJ except, of course, the FBI.
This is bad. Really, really bad. I don’t think people know or care just how bad this is.
The DOJ needs a massive purge of people and a massive investigation with possible jail time where appropriate.
Garland needs to be impeached. Yesterday. Probably prosecuted, if any part of the DOJ is clean enough to do so.
The silence on the left will be deafening.
We have leapt past banana republic into police state territory.
Agreed, and yes, we have leapt past banana republic. I worry that the extent of damage will take too long to correct.
The comments I read from the left are outrageously ignorant and I think we’d need a new term for “reaching” in order to accommodate their excuses.
And where is the outrage among all the so-called ‘journalists’ in the corporate media?
.
Oh, that’s right — they are busily and desperately trying to cover up and silence this story.
There is no clean up possible with the FBI. It must be disbanded and anyone that served in the organization banned from any law enforcement position for life.
Any house cleaning within the DOJ itself needs to be handled by an ad hoc, independent group, with complete and absolute transparency. Once all prosecutions are over, the group immediately disbands.
If a group is used to replace the FBI, that body needs to be group of law enforcement agents only, from top to bottom. All lawyers need to be barred from it, as it’s job is to INVESTIGATE the breaking of laws.
If you think the FBI and the intel community wasn’t doing the identical censorship operation with the rest of Big Tech (Google, FaceBook, Instagram, YouTube, etc), you are missing the point. Note that the FBI doesn’t need to do this with TikTok because the CCP is in charge over there. FBI delenda est. Cheers –
So who is going to stand up to this and arrest them? I feel that people are waiting for something big to happen then they will come out and make a stand. The J6 fiasco has shown what government is capable and doing to its citizens. If and when the resistance starts up for the right reason look out. Our government is so far out of control with no way to counter them with more lawyers and courts that don’t work. We the people hold the upper hand but so far we are refusing to us it. We need to bring down all woke entities by economics. Quit spending money at these places. Yes it would be hard but look at the direction we are headed. We will wake up on morning and be told we have no rights anymore. There will be the elite looking down on us while we live like serfs and give till it hurts to the kings in their castles. I feel many of us want to live free but look as the rules and regulations that are dreamed up and instituted every day. Are freedoms are rapidly going down the tube. If you stand back and look at this mess there are a small amount of kinks say a few hundred that are hell bent on total control over 8 billion people. Telling you what you can say, drive, eat, live and reproduce. Sounds like total control to me.
“So who is going to stand up to this and arrest them?…….”
Nobody. Moreover, the efforts to even stop this at the political level will fail, just like it did in the early 1990’s when the Clinton administration weaponized the DOJ/FBI/ATF/IRS. The horror of Oklahoma City put it on hold until Obama/Killary resurrected it. So expect more of this:
‘https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-tennessee-men-arrested-planning-attacks-law-enforcement-personnel-and-fbi-s-knoxville
“Two Tennessee Men Arrested for Planning Attacks on Law Enforcement Personnel and the FBI’s Knoxville Field Office”
The FBI has always been this way. J Edgar Hoover set the bar pretty low.
I have been closely following the Twitter Files. We all knew this was going on (and still is on FB, etc.), but the extent to which this occurred is still shocking.
It seems the FBI, DOJ, DHS, et. al., tech companies and mainstream media have all coordinated to undermine our freedoms and democracy. We’re on the verge of losing our country.
Suzanne, I must commend you for all your work here. Real journalism is dying.
The cancer of corruption within the FBI’s DC headquarters has been slowly growing for decades, unchecked by Congressional oversight, DOJ management, and corrective legislation. However, that agency’s perfidious handling of the 2016 Steele dossier (a dirty conspiracy of the Hillary Clinton campaign), the shrugging dismissal of Hillary’s email server (unsecured Classified communications), and the agency’s lies and burial of the perverse behaviors and criminal evidences contained in the Hunter Biden laptop have amply demonstrated the terrible progression of the disease. Closer to home, we should all remain deeply offended at the FBI’s violent, door-busting, and ransacking raid of the Hueper home in Homer.
The FBI can no longer be trusted to impartially and honestly carry out its mission, nor can the DOJ be trusted to remedy its own defects. Accordingly, members of the US Congress must be heavily pressured by citizens to conduct a thorough investigation of the agency, and to bring forward corrective legislation similar to what was accomplished by the (late US Senator Frank) Church Committee in the mid-1970s. The responsibility for the FBI rests with the U.S. Congress, which itself is corrupted and riven by partisan interests. One might very well despair, but even so the letters to Sullivan, Murkowski, and Peltola should be written and snail-mailed to their offices. “Get this done!”
There is ample proof that the intelligence agencies, including the FBI, DOJ and probably the CIA have been engaged in election meddling since at least 2016 and probably well before that. While it may be problematic for Congress to prosecute these alphabet agencies in their entirety there is some low hanging fruit they could go after. Comey, Brennan, McCabe, Clapper have all perjured themselves while under oath. Prosecute them! With the recent release of Twitter files we see that current FBI Director, Christopher Wray, almost certainly knew that his agency was censoring and muzzling conservative voices before the 2020 midterm elections. If that is not sedition, then I don’t know what is! Wray should be in prison along with his cohorts, but we all know that will not happen because our federal law enforcement has been weaponized by the Democrats, as well as the judiciary. It is a sad era in American history right now. The Republic cannot stand long against a two tiered justice system.
Look at them scrambling! LOL! I can’t wait for more revealing I feel like a kid in a candy store.
Hard Choices. Hillary’s words. Not mine. Yes. It will be, when all the crimes committed, by those holding public positions. Air that dirty laundry.
Problem is nobody will hold them accountable. They own the law bought and paid for with our tax dollars.
I’m not surprised but the saddest part is I bet most Democrat voters are just fine with the doing this.
Last post! It’s apparently a waste of time to contribute intelligent observations to MRAK, as censors (Susanne?) never publish worthy comments. I must have offended someone with the $100.00 contribution, so I won’t be making that mistake again!
– Former reader
I am guessing that this is from a clueless Twitter-twit millennial who demands instant gratification in all things, and who has no idea (or does not care) that Suzanne screens ALL comments before posting them, and deletes most of those that are unduly uncivil.
Uh oh (YOU MUST BE A DEMOCRAT) “skytrooper” that tried to reply to the post above: that MOST democrats would be fine with the FBI dismantling of our elections….
Boy, will you ever be missed. Heheh!
Oh Sky you’ll be terribly missed. Please come back. Also, it is my guess that SD has a very lean staff sooo perfectly wonderful comments languish for days. Some of mine don’t appear. It’s OK.
SEE YA!!!!
(Feels refreshing)
The FBI is an absolute embarrassment. They have failed the American people..
From Hero to 0 in the last 12 years.
They need completely disbanded. I do not trust any of them.
If you work for them I would suggest a career change you are the laughing stock of the world.
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