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Substack author Matt Taibbi on Friday debunked his latest publication, the "Twitter Files," which details the FBI's ties to the tech giant.
“#TwitterFiles reveals more information every day about how the government collects, analyzes and reports on your social media content. "Twitter's relationships with the FBI have been ongoing and extensive as if they were a subsidiary," Tybee began Friday. “In January 2020 and between November 2022, more than 150 emails were sent between the FBI and Joel Roth, Twitter's former head of trust and safety… a surprising number of FBI requests for Twitter to act on election disinformation, including warnings. funny tweets -subscriber accounts".
In response to the Twitter files, an FBI spokesman told Fox News Digital, "The FBI regularly interacts with private sector organizations to provide certain information regarding subversive, classified, classified, or criminal activities by entities identified as foreign malicious influence." may adopt on their platforms and for their clients upon notification by the FBI.”
Tybee pointed out that the FBI's Social Media Task Force, which was formed after the 2016 presidential election, has hired 80 agents to track foreign interference, which features prominently in Twitter files.
"Are agencies like the FBI and DHS doing their investigative work in-house or outsourcing it?" You have to prove to me that you can do any kind of big data or AI research inside a dead government,'" says Tybeek, a former intelligence officer.
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© REUTERS/Yuri Gripas FBI headquarters in Washington. Pro-Russian hackers in the US say they hacked the FBI website this week. Reuters/Yuri Grypas
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He then shared an email sent to the FBI by a "Twitter contact" that listed several Twitter accounts that "may violate Twitter's terms of service."
"Twitter staff continued to find reasons to suspend all four accounts in this case, including @fromma, whose tweets are almost all jokes (see example below), including his 'sarcastic misinformation' on November 8," Taibitt wrote.
Tybee singled out two other accounts, one of whom he called "blue," whose tweets were clearly pranks, writing, "Of the six accounts mentioned in the previous two emails, all but two have been…banned. "
Tybee shared a November 5, 2022 email from the FBI's Elections Headquarters to the agency's San Francisco office, where Twitter is headquartered, with a long list of Twitter accounts that "may request further action."
Agent Elvis Chan sent the list to Twitter users.
Twitter responded with a list of accounts that took action, including actor Billy Baldwin.
"Many of the above accounts were satirical in nature, almost all (except Baldwin and @RSBNetwork) were relatively inactive and some were blocked, most with a standard 'Thanks Twitter' email," Taibbi reported. .
Substack's author added reactions from some Twitter users whose accounts have been flagged by the FBI, many of whom expressed shock at the revelations in the "Twitter files."
Tybee reported a September 2022 exchange between then-Twitter attorney Stacia Cardil and then-General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker, who shared the results of the meeting "weekly." . DHS, Department of Justice and Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
"A Twitter executive writes that he asked directly if there were any 'barriers' to sharing classified information with 'industry.'" Family between Twitter and the FBI What other company would dare offer "unrestricted access" to agree to classified FBI information?
He added: “At the end of this letter he appears to list several 'escalations' that were raised at the meeting and have already been 'resolved'.
Initially, there were several instances of correspondence between Twitter and the FBI, mainly regarding messages flagged as "potentially objectionable content" by the FBI.
"In one instance, the FBI sent out so many reports of 'potentially objectionable content' that Twitter employees congratulated each other on their 'monumental commitment' to Slack to investigate," Tybee wrote, sharing a screenshot of the exchange.
Tybee reported at the time: "Twitter had several submissions for reports flagged by the government. This letter from Agent Chan Roth refers to Teleporter, a platform that allows Twitter to receive reports from the FBI," adding, "Reports have also come from various Here the staff are recommending 'jerky' content based on data from 'DHS etc. "
"Even state governments have reported content," Tybee said. For example, Twitter received reports through its partner support portal, resources from the Center for Internet Security, a DHS partner organization…Links to Trump's tweet…The video was reported by the Election Integrity Project (EIP) Stanford. apparently based on information from the Internet Security Center (CIS).
“If that's confusing, it's because CIS is a DHS contractor and describes itself as a 'partner' of DHS' Cybersecurity and Internet Security Agency (CISA). It is one of the government organizations reviewing EIP content, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab, and the University of Washington policy. The list also includes the information center," he continued.
Tybee closed his horn by telling his followers, "What most people think of as 'deep state' is actually a chaotic collaboration of government agencies, private contractors, and (sometimes government-sponsored) NGOs. The lines become as meaningless as they blur. ."
“Instead of prosecuting child kidnappers or terrorists, the FBI has agents mass analyzing and flagging social media posts — many of them — not as part of a criminal investigation but as an independent, ongoing surveillance operation. People have to be okay with that," Tybee added.
© Getty Images Twitter owner Elon Musk asked freelance journalists Matt Taibbi and Barry Weiss to speak about the so-called "Twitter files." Getty Images
Tybee went viral earlier this month with the first release of the "Twitter files," which focused on the internal Twitter debate that led to the censorship of Hunter Biden's laptop storyline in the 2020 presidential election, and some officials are trying to explain how he broke it. chopped stuff.” “Politics.
It later emerged that the initial "Twitter files" had been reviewed without Musk's knowledge by Twitter General Counsel Jim Baker, who previously served as FBI General Counsel and was involved in the Russia investigation. Soon after, Musk fired Baker.
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Baker was surprised by Tybee's coverage of the Hunter Biden story coverage, telling colleagues at the time, "I agree with the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked," but added, " It makes sense. to suggest to us that they might be and that one should be careful."
Additionally, Tybee initially reported, "Although several sources recalled hearing a federal police alert about a foreign hack over the summer, to my knowledge there is no evidence of government involvement in the laptop story." It's unclear, whether Baker's involvement in Tybee's review of the "Twitter files" led to that conclusion, or whether Baker provided files showing the federal government intervened in Twitter's cover-up of Hunter Biden's laptop story.
© Ron Sacks/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images Former Twitter Deputy General Counsel and former FBI General Counsel Jim Baker Ron Sacks/Consolidated News Pictures/Getty Images
The second issue, edited by Barry Weiss, unveiled a "blacklist" of prominent conservatives on Twitter, including Fox News' Dan Bongin, Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk and Dr. White. dealing with standstill.
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Internal reports also show that Twitter officials admit that the popular Libs TikTok account has never violated its "hateful behavior" policy, despite being fined several times for doing so.
The third, fourth, and fifth releases of the Twitter files focused on the permanent suspension of former President Trump in connection with the events of the January 2021 Capitol riots.
Tybee reported how Twitter circulated election-related tweets ahead of the 2020 election, with several users being "flagged" by the FBI.
© Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage, Barry Weiss Freelance journalists Matt Tybee and Barry Weiss were invited by Elon Musk to report on the Twitter Files. Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage, Barry Weiss
Freelance writer Michael Shellenberger discovered that Dorsey called him while on vacation when his deputies pressured Trump to remove the platform from Roth in order to censor other users involved in tweets related to this year's election. 2020
On Monday, Weiss detailed the pressure Twitter management was exerting to demand Trump's permanent suspension, though Free Press editors said some pro-political Twitter staffers didn't believe Trump's Jan. 6 tweets violated his rules. . .
However, it was Vijaya Gade, then Twitter's general counsel, who questioned whether Trump's tweets were a "coded call for further violence." Shortly thereafter, the so-called "enforcement group" indicated that depending on how Twitter interprets Trump's tweets, it could be violating its policy on incitement to violence.
Elon Musk has repeatedly called for transparency regarding Twitter's past and current actions to manage content on the platform, including censored content.
Fox News' Adam Sabes contributed to this report.
