OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk appeared to dismiss concerns about being raided by the FBI following a series of document dumps over the past two weeks revealing how much of a role the bureau played in getting content and users censored and suspended prior to his takeover of the platform.
According to journalist Matt Taibbi, who dropped the sixth “Twitter Files” installment Friday evening in a lengthy thread, the FBI acted as a “subsidiary” of Twitter in terms of managing content and viewpoints on the platform in the years immediately prior to Musk’s $44 billion purchase of the company this fall.
Musk, who has described Twitter a “crime scene,” responded to country music star John Rich, who asked, “How long before the FBI raids @elonmusk ‘s home?”
The Twitter boss quipped in response: “I don’t have a home.”
I don’t have a home
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2022
Another user, Five Times August, responded to Musk with a joke of his own: “BREAKING: ‘Homeless man buys Twitter'” — to which Musk responded with a
LOL emoji.
🤣
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2022
“The #TwitterFiles are revealing more every day about how the government collects, analyzes, and flags your social media content. Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” Taibbi wrote on Friday.
“Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth… 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,” he added.
Taibbi went on to highlight a social media task force established by the FBI after the 2016 presidential election, in which as many as “80 agents” were assigned to allegedly monitor foreign interference.
“Do agencies like FBI and DHS do in-house flagging work themselves, or farm it out? ‘You have to prove to me that inside the f—ing government you can do any kind of massive data or AI search,’ says one former intelligence officer,” Taibbi noted.
He also shared an email that was sent to “Twitter contacts” from an FBI official who listed several user accounts that “may potentially constitute violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service.”
“HELLO TWITTER CONTACTS”: The master-canine quality of the FBI’s relationship to Twitter comes through in this November 2022 email, in which “FBI San Francisco is notifying you” it wants action on four accounts: pic.twitter.com/LjgB6fxENo
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
“Twitter personnel in that case went on to look for reasons to suspend all four accounts, including @fromma, whose tweets are almost all jokes (see sample below), including his ‘civic misinformation’ of Nov. 8,” Taibbi tweeted.
Taibbi showcased two more accounts, one he described as being “blue-leaning” and whose tweets were obvious jokes, writing, “Of the six accounts mentioned in the previous two emails, all but two… were suspended.”
15. Just to show the FBI can be hyper-intrusive in both directions, they also asked Twitter to review a blue-leaning account for a different joke, except here it was even more obvious that @clairefosterPHD, who kids a lot, was kidding: pic.twitter.com/uLxHayY11C
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
https://t.co/ZQeb9Ko06p an internal email from November 5, 2022, the FBI’s National Election Command Post, which compiles and sends on complaints, sent the SF field office a long list of accounts that “may warrant additional action”: pic.twitter.com/yILcgjFyev
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 16, 2022
It did not take long for Republicans to begin demanding answers anew as the latest files dump appears to indicate excessive federal government interference in censorship campaigns via a social media platform that agencies could never get away with on their own due to the Constitution’s First Amendment speech guarantee.
“America needs a functioning FBI that investigates and dismantles violent gangs, sex traffickers, public corruption, terrorism, and more,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted.
America needs a functioning FBI that investigates and dismantles violent gangs, sex traffickers, public corruption, terrorism, and more.
But sitting around and flagging tweets they don’t like? That ain’t it.
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) December 16, 2022
“But sitting around and flagging tweets they don’t like? That ain’t it,” Boebert added. “The FBI has lost its way.”
The FBI has lost its way.
— Rep. Lauren Boebert (@RepBoebert) December 16, 2022
“[The] FBI has a lot to answer for after the latest drop of Twitter Files 6,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) tweeted Friday as well.
During a segment of “Hannity,” Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) similarly ripped the FBI.
“Anyone that cares about free speech should be outraged,” Comer said. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, this has to stop.”
The GOP House Judiciary Committee account, which is managed by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, asked: “Does anyone still trust the FBI?”
Sen. Josh Hawley further speculated: “And if FBI used Twitter to censor, you bet they also used Google and Facebook.”
And if FBI used Twitter to censor, you bet they also used Google and Facebook
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 16, 2022
