In late November 2022, billionaire Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk announced he would be releasing “The Twitter Files on free speech suppression.” Musk had purchased the social media firm the previous month, with an announced commitment to restore “free speech.” For the Twitter Files, he allowed six independent journalists, many of them with left-leaning backgrounds, access to internal Twitter documents and communications covering a period beginning in 2016 when Twitter began enacting controversial restrictions on user content. Matt Taibbi, one of the journalists selected, wrote that all the Twitter Files reporters had full “editorial control” over what they wrote, and were free to criticize anyone, including Musk. ^{1 2 3}

The Twitter Files showed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. intelligence community, and federal politicians had exerted a growing influence over Twitter content moderation after 2017. ⁴ Some examples covered from this period included the suppression of an October 2020 New York Post story involving the contents of a computer allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden, ⁵ a request from the Biden administration to suspend the account of journalist Alex Berenson, ⁶ and a request from U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to suspend the account of journalist Paul Sperry. ⁷

Both Berenson and Sperry received permanent suspensions. Sperry’s suspension was rescinded after Elon Musk assumed ownership of Twitter. Berenson sued Twitter and was reinstated prior to Musk’s ownership. ^{8 9 10}

Additional topics covered in Twitter Files releases included a description of the blacklisting and content suppression procedures used by the firm; ^{11 12 13} the history of how then-President Donald Trump received a permanent suspension from Twitter in January 2021; ^{14 15} Twitter’s manipulation and suppression of posts challenging COVID-19 policies; ¹⁶ disputes between Twitter and federal officials regarding the degree of Russian interference on the platform; ¹⁷ and how the since-discredited Hamilton 68 tracking list developed by the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy became a media and political tool to malign right-of-center American Twitter users as Russian influencers. ¹⁸

Background

In late October 2022, billionaire Elon Musk, then estimated to be the wealthiest person in the world, purchased and became the CEO of the social media firm Twitter. Twitter reverted to a privately held company as part of the $44 billion deal, having traded as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange from 2013 until 2022. ^{19 20}

During the six years prior to the purchase, Twitter engaged in multiple controversial content restrictions. Some incidents were as severe as suspensions of popular accounts belonging to users such as the New York Post, the Babylon Bee, and former President Donald Trump. Musk was a popular and prolific user of Twitter before 2022 and became a strong critic of the restrictions. One of his stated goals in purchasing the social media firm was to restore its commitment to “free speech.” ^{21 22}

In a Twitter post on November 28, 2022, Musk wrote: “The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened …” ²³

He would subsequently grant six independent journalists access to the firm’s internal documents and communications coving the years of the controversial content suppression. Matt Taibbi, one of the journalists selected, said that in an early meeting Musk said he hoped that a “full confessional restores faith in the company.” ²⁴

Judging Musk’s statement in early December 2022, after the first releases from the Twitter Files, Taibbi concluded “everything I’ve seen since seems to confirm he’s sincere about his desire for full open-kimono transparency.” According to Taibbi, each of the reporters had “editorial control” over what they wrote and that he was personally “told flat-out I could write anything I wanted, including anything about the current company and its new chief, Elon Musk.” ²⁵

The only restriction identified by any of the journalists was a requirement that all stories sourced to the Twitter Files had to first appear as threaded posts on the Twitter platform. ²⁶

Journalists

The group Elon Musk chose to research and report Twitter Files stories were all independent journalists, some with previous experience at conventional corporate media firms. Several were left leaning in ideological orientation. Most of them had moved their professional content to Substack, a subscriber-based media platform that allows journalists to profit directly from their choice of stories while remaining independent from corporate media.

Matt Taibbi

The largest number of Twitter Files reports were filed by Matt Taibbi, a Substack-based reporter. A former political reporter for Rolling Stone, the left-leaning journalist had been praised by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as “one of the few journalists in America who speaks truth to power.” ²⁷

Among other work, Taibbi was the author of Insane Clown President, a 2017 book sharply critical of the election of President Donald Trump. For Rolling Stone and later for his Substack page, Taibbi authored several reports that debunked the claims in the Steele dossier and other matters related to the unfounded conspiracy theory that Trump and his campaign aides won the presidency due to their collusion with the Russian government. ^{28 29 30}

Bari Weiss

Bari Weiss was an opinion writer and editor on the New York Times op-ed page from 2017 until 2020. After leaving the Times she founded The Free Press, a Substack-based, subscriber supported platform for herself and several other independent journalists. ³¹

Michael Shellenberger

Journalist and climate policy activist Michael Shellenberger was named a Time magazine “Hero of the Environment” and was involved in the founding of the Breakthrough Institute and Environmental Progress, a pair of climate and energy policy nonprofits. He also created Public, a Substack-based platform for his independent journalism. ³²

Lee Fang

Journalist Lee Fang was a writer for The Intercept, a left-leaning investigative news website. He was also professionally affiliated with several other left-leaning news journals and outlets, including The Nation, ThinkProgress, TruthOut and Salon at various points in his career. ³³

Alex Berenson

Journalist and novelist Alex Berenson was a New York Times reporter from 1999 to 2010, and during this period was a war correspondent in Iraq. ³⁴

David Zweig

David Zweig was an independent author and novelist, with multiple features published in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired and New York Magazine. ³⁵

Persons Discussed in Twitter Files Reporting

Jim Baker

Jim Baker was the Twitter deputy general counsel in June 2020 and held the position until his firing shortly after release of the first Twitter Files report. ^{36 37} From 2014 until 2017, Baker had served as the general counsel of the FBI. ^{38 39}

Baker appears to have been the most senior of several former FBI staffers working at Twitter. According to Michael Shellenberger’s Twitter Files report: “As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — ‘Bu alumni’— working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals.” ⁴⁰

At the FBI, Baker was involved in the Bureau’s controversial investigation into alleged links between the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the Russian government. He worked on a FISA application against Trump campaign aide Carter Page. ⁴¹ In a May 2019 interview, Baker defended the FBI’s investigation and said he felt compelled to speak out to counter conspiracy theories perpetrated by President Trump and his allies that the investigation was politically motivated or instigated by the discredited Steele dossier. ⁴²

In July 2017, Baker was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for possibly leaking classified national security information to the media. ⁴³ The Washington Post called the investigation “a strange interagency dispute” between the FBI and National Security Agency (NSA). Despite the investigation ending with no charges, Baker was reassigned in December along with many other top FBI officials by Christopher Wray, then-President Trump’s newly appointed director. Baker left the FBI shortly afterward. ⁴⁴

In a December 6, 2023, Twitter Files report, Matt Taibbi announced that Baker had been fired from Twitter. ⁴⁵ “Twitter Deputy General Counsel (and former FBI General Counsel) Jim Baker was fired,” wrote Taibbi. “Among the reasons? Vetting the first batch of ‘Twitter Files’ – without knowledge of new management.” ⁴⁶

The first Twitter Files report, produced by Taibbi days earlier, addressed the FBI’s role in persuading Twitter to suppress a New York Post report in October 2020 regarding the contents of a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden. Subsequent Twitter Files reporting on the incident by Michael Shellenberger revealed Baker was involved in Twitter’s internal decision to suppress the story. ^{47 48}

In his report on the Baker firing, Taibbi wrote that fellow journalist Bari Weiss discovered Baker’s involvement when researching her own first report for the Twitter Files. ⁴⁹

“Baker is a controversial figure,” wrote Taibbi, before briefly summarizing the former FBI figure’s career. “The news that Baker was reviewing the ‘Twitter files’ surprised everyone involved, to say the least. New Twitter chief Elon Musk acted quickly to ‘exit’ Baker Tuesday.” ⁵⁰

“My jaw hit the floor,” said Weiss, according to Taibbi, explaining her reaction upon the discovery that Baker was vetting information before releasing it to her and the other Twitter Files reporters. ⁵¹

“In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today,” wrote Twitter CEO Elon Musk, in a Twitter post that same day. ⁵²

Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey is the co-founder of Twitter and was the company’s CEO until November 2021. Dorsey was initially supportive of Elon Musk’s purchase of the firm. An October 2022 report covering the terms of Musk’s purchase stated that Dorsey had retained a 2.4 percent ownership stake in the firm but held no leadership or management role. ^{53 54 55}

After resigning as CEO, Dorsey stated he and Twitter staff were wrong for their part in controversies such as removing President Donald Trump from the platform in January 2021 and suppressing the October 2020 New York Post report regarding the contents of a computer allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden. ^{56 57 58}

Parag Agrawal

Parag Agrawal was Twitter’s chief technology officer who became CEO in November 2021 following Jack Dorsey’s departure. Agrawal was fired as Twitter CEO in October 2022, immediately after Elon Musk assumed control of the firm. According to a Reuters report, Agrawal was one of three senior officials Musk believed had been “misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.” ^{59 60}

Yoel Roth

Yoel Roth was the head of trust and safety at Twitter and a major figure in content moderation during the period covered in the Twitter Files reports. Roth resigned from Twitter in November 2022, two weeks after Elon Musk became CEO. ⁶¹

Following the 2016 presidential election, Roth used his personal Twitter account to refer to Donald Trump as a “racist tangerine” and to claim that the White House had been taken over by “ACTUAL NAZIS.” Days after taking control of Twitter, Musk defended Roth. ⁶²

“We’ve all made some questionable tweets, me more than most, but I want to be clear that I support Yoel,” said Musk, in an October 30, 2022, Twitter post. “My sense is that he has high integrity, and we are all entitled to our political beliefs.” ⁶³

Vijaya Gadde

Vijaya Gadde was the head of legal affairs and policy at Twitter until her abrupt firing in October 2022 when Elon Musk assumed control of the company. She was one of the key figures in Twitter Files reports regarding content suppression on the platform. According to a Reuters report covering her dismissal, Gadde was one of three senior officials Musk believed had been “misleading him and Twitter investors over the number of fake accounts on the platform.” ⁶⁴

An April 2022 report in Politico stated that Gadde cried at a staff meeting while discussing with coworkers what a Musk takeover could mean for Twitter’s controls over user content. The alleged incident occurred in April 2022, shortly after Twitter had accepted Musk’s purchase terms but six months before he took control of the firm. After the April 2022 story appeared, Musk responded on Twitter with a reference to Gadde’s role in suppressing the New York Post story about the contents of the computer allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden. ⁶⁵

“Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” wrote Musk. ⁶⁶

Stacia Cardille

Attorney Stacia Cardille was Twitter’s senior legal executive during many of the events covered in the Twitter Files. Matt Taibbi wrote that her “alertness stood out among Twitter leaders.” According LegiStorm, a database that tracks Congressional staff and lobbying, Cardille left Twitter in October 2021 to become the director of global legislative oversight for Google. LegiStorm showed Cardille had worked for the Obama administration and multiple Democratic members of Congress for 11 years prior to accepting a position at Twitter in 2018. ^{67 68}

Nick Pickles

Prior to the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, Nick Pickles was the firm’s head of public policy. In January 2023, Pickles was promoted to become Twitter’s head of global government affairs. Before working at Twitter, Pickles was the director of Big Brother Watch, a UK-based privacy advocacy group. ^{69 70}

Blacklisting and Content Restriction Processes

Twitter Files investigations by journalists Bari Weiss, David Zweig, Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger revealed a system of content restriction and blacklisting of accounts that occurred prior to the late 2022 purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk. ⁷¹

Weiss wrote that these restrictions occurred “all in secret, without informing users” and compromised Twitter’s original mission: “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” ⁷²

Visibility Filtering

“What many people call “shadow banning,” Twitter executives and employees called “Visibility Filtering” or “VF,”” wrote Weiss. “Multiple high-level sources confirmed its meaning.” ⁷³

Weiss reported that a senior Twitter employee told her: “Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool.” ⁷⁴

“We control visibility quite a bit. And we control the amplification of your content quite a bit. And normal people do not know how much we do,” said a Twitter engineer to Weiss, a statement she said was confirmed by two other Twitter employees. ⁷⁵  

Weiss further explained that visibility filtering was used “to block searches of individual users; to limit the scope of a particular tweet’s discoverability; to block select users’ posts from ever appearing on the “trending” page; and from inclusion in hashtag searches.” ⁷⁶

Outsourced and Automated Filtering

According to David Zweig’s analysis of the Twitter response to the COVID-19 pandemic, some content moderation was done by outsourced contractors from nations such as the Philippines, and by non-human artificial intelligence (AI) programs. ⁷⁷

The AI machines proved “too crude for such nuanced work,” he wrote. And though the contractors were given “decision trees” to assist their judgment, Zweig found that “tasking non experts to adjudicate tweets on complex topics like myocarditis and mask efficacy data was destined for a significant error rate.” ⁷⁸

Twitter staff, according to Zweig, decided what went into the AI software and the decision trees used by the contractors. Twitter made the subjective decisions regarding when to escalate cases and suspend accounts. Together, these added up to what Zweig judged were “serious problems” with the policy. ⁷⁹

“As it is with all people and institutions, there was individual and collective bias,” he concluded. “With Covid, this bias bent heavily toward establishment dogmas. Inevitably, dissident yet legitimate content was labeled as misinformation, and the accounts of doctors and others were suspended both for tweeting opinions and demonstrably true information.” ⁸⁰

Content Enforcement Teams

At the most basic level, according to Weiss, visibility filtering was handled by Twitter’s “Strategic Response Team – Global Escalation Team, or SRT-GET.” She reported that this group fielded as many as 200 requests per day. ⁸¹

But above them, Weiss reported there was a “secret group” that consisted top executives such as Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth, and CEOs Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal. “This is where the biggest, most politically sensitive decisions got made,” she wrote. This, according to Twitter Files data she reported, was the “Site Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support” group, or “SIP-PES.” ⁸²

During the 2020 election, according to a Twitter Files report from Matt Taibbi, this group became “a high-speed Supreme Court of moderation, issuing content rulings on the fly, often in minutes and based on guesses, gut calls, even Google searches, even in cases involving the President.” ⁸³   

By the end of 2020, wrote Taibbi, they had erected an “inherently insane/impossible project” where the assumption was “that it was Twitter’s responsibility to control, as much as possible, what people could talk about, how often, and with whom.” ⁸⁴  

Twitter Denials

“Twitter denied that it does such things,” reported Weiss, regarding allegations of so-called shadow banning. As an example, she referenced a July 2018 entry on Twitter’s corporate blog co-authored by Vijaya Gadde, the firm’s former head of legal, policy and trust. ^{85 86}  

Titled “Setting the record straight on shadow banning,” the corporate statement defined “shadow banning” as “deliberately making someone’s content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster.” ⁸⁷

“We do not shadow ban,” wrote Gadde and her co-author. “You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow . . . And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.” ⁸⁸  

Evidence of Political Bias

In early October 2020, according to Matt Taibbi, Twitter executives opened an internal Slack channel to “be home for discussions about election-related removals, especially ones that involved “high-profile” accounts (often called “VITs” or “Very Important Tweeters”).” ⁸⁹

Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger each reported that the political views of Twitter staff skewed overwhelmingly toward Democrats. Taibbi posted a summary of federal political donations from Twitter staff. It revealed a low end of 96.4 percent of donations going to Democratic committees in 2018 (with 3.6 percent to Republicans), and a high-end of 99.7 percent to Democrats in 2022. ⁹⁰

Of the election monitoring during the 2020 election, Taibbi concluded: “This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right.” ⁹¹   

In the first installment of the Twitter Files Taibbi wrote that “requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine.” As an example, he provided an October 24, 2020, email exchange in which one Twitter official sent to another the names of several accounts, under the heading “More to review from the Biden team.” In response, the recipient told the sender the request had been “handled.” ⁹²

Shellenberger revealed a January 22, 2017, public statement from the Twitter account of Yoel Roth in which Roth claimed there were “ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE.” January 22 was two days after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. ⁹³

“Examining the entire election enforcement Slack, we didn’t see one reference to moderation requests from the Trump campaign, the Trump White House, or Republicans generally,” wrote Taibbi. “We looked. They may exist: we were told they do. However, they were absent here.” ⁹⁴

Beginning of Federal Influence over Twitter

After the 2016 election and throughout 2017, according to a Twitter Files reports from Matt Taibbi, Twitter came under increasing pressure from Congress, the media, and others to find and remove alleged foreign propaganda accounts from the platform. Allegations of Russian propaganda on social media interfering with the 2016 election was a major factor driving this pressure. ^{95 96}

“The ubiquity of the 2016 Russian interference story as stated pretext for building out the censorship machine can’t be overstated,” concluded Taibbi. “It’s analogous to how 9/11 inspired the expansion of the security state.” ⁹⁷

According to Twitter’s internal documents reported by Taibbi, the government’s pressure campaign led to a new and not publicly disclosed policy whereby Twitter agreed to remove accounts and content “identified by the U.S. intelligence community” as foreign propaganda efforts to influence elections. The same document showed Twitter publicly denied that it would suspend accounts because of security agency requests, and instead maintained that suspensions were at Twitter’s “sole discretion.” ⁹⁸

Evidence for Russian Interference on Twitter

The Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian firm described in media accounts as a “troll farm,” was identified by U.S. government intelligence services in 2017 as the major source of attempts to manipulate U.S. social media during the 2016 election. In February 2018 a federal grand jury indicted the IRA and 12 persons affiliated with it, but in March 2020 the U.S. Department of Justice dropped the charges against the IRA due to what federal prosecutors said was a “change in the balance of the government’s proof due to a classification determination.” ^{99 100}

In January 2023, the academic journal Nature Communications published a research paper assessing the political influence of IRA-identified Twitter accounts during the 2016 election. The authors were affiliated with the New York University Center for Social Media and Politics. ¹⁰¹

The research revealed that 70 percent of the IRA’s 2016 election content was absorbed by just one percent of Twitter’s American users, that consumption of the IRA content was “heavily concentrated” among voters already strongly inclined to vote for Republican candidates, and that effectiveness of the IRA’s work was “eclipsed by content from domestic news media and politicians.” ¹⁰² The researchers concluded there was “no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.” ¹⁰³

“My personal sense coming out of this is that this got way overhyped,” said one of the researchers in an interview with the Washington Post. ¹⁰⁴ The research did not analyze the impact of the IRA on Facebook or other social media platforms.

Criticism of Twitter’s Russia Response

In August 2017, according to the Twitter Files, the firm’s leadership “were sure they didn’t have a Russia problem.” ¹⁰⁵ In response to then-ongoing Congressional investigations into alleged Russian manipulation of social media during the 2016 election, Facebook informed the U.S. Senate that it had suspended 300 accounts it suspected were affiliated with Russian propaganda. ¹⁰⁶

Twitter officials, according to Matt Taibbi, performed a “cursory review” and found no evidence of Russian influence on Twitter to rival what Facebook had discovered. The discussions from this period released in the Twitter Files show Twitter staff implementing a communications strategy to keep the Senate scrutiny focused on Facebook’s problem. ¹⁰⁷

Taibbi wrote that in September 2017, Twitter told the Senate that it had “suspended 22 possible Russian accounts, and 179 others with ‘possible links’ to those accounts, amid a larger set of roughly 2700 suspects manually examined” by a Twitter security team. ¹⁰⁸  

The response to this, according to the Twitter Files report Taibbi wrote, was that “a furious Senator Mark Warner of Virginia – ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee” convened a news conference to ridicule Twitter’s effort as “frankly inadequate on every level.” ¹⁰⁹ The Twitter Files reports revealed sustained pressure from Warner and other political figures, aided by leaks to the media, portraying Twitter as insufficiently concerned with the Russian threat. ¹¹⁰

“In the weeks after Warner’s presser, a torrent of stories sourced to the Intel Committee poured into the news,” wrote Taibbi. ¹¹¹  One example he provided was an October 2017 headline from Politico: “Twitter deleted data potentially crucial to Russia probes.” ¹¹²  

Hillary Clinton, the defeated 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, joined in public criticism of Twitter. During an early October 2017 Silicon Valley speech at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, she said “it’s time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyberwarfare.” ^{113 114}

The Twitter Files showed an assessment from a Twitter staffer stating that Congressional Democrats were “taking cues from Hillary Clinton” regarding the firm’s behavior. ^{115 116}   

Twitter’s “Russia task force”

According to the Twitter Files, a “Russia task force” was created in early October 2017. It embarked on a search for accounts that had spent advertising money on Twitter to spread Russian propaganda during the election. ¹¹⁷

By late October, according to task force emails, the group had performed an “exhaustive analysis” of 2500 suspect accounts. After a “manual review” of each, the task force found “32 suspicious accounts and only 17 of those are connected with Russia.” ¹¹⁸  

Of the 17 Russian-connected accounts, the group reported only two had spent a significant amount (defined as more than $10,000) on Twitter advertising during the election. One of the two was Russia Today (RT), a state-funded multi-media firm that openly admitted its relationship to the Russian government. The RT website stated that RT “is publicly financed from the budget of the Russian Federation.” ^{119 120}  

“The failure of the ‘Russia task force’ to produce ‘material’ worsened the company’s PR crisis,” wrote Taibbi. ¹²¹

Twitter Capitulates to Congress

Twitter “changed its tune about the smallness of its Russia problem,” according to Matt Taibbi, as Congress “threatened costly legislation” and the social media firm faced more hostile news stories that it suspected were fueled by leaks from Congress. ¹²²   

In a November 2017 email, a Twitter staffer reported that congressional committees “appear to have leaked the account names.” According to Taibbi, this was a reference to the 2700 accounts Twitter had “manually examined” in September 2017. Twitter initially judged (and suspended) only 22 of the 2700 as “possible” Russian accounts, and another 179 for “possible links” to the first group. This was the process deemed “frankly inadequate on every level” by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). ¹²³

In late November 2017, after examining the 2700 leaked account names, Buzzfeed News and independent researchers claimed to find 45 additional accounts guilty of spreading Russian propaganda, most of them, according to Buzzfeed, “tweeted predominantly in German, and were primarily focused on jumping on German hashtag games and other trending topics.” ¹²⁴ The report was critical of Twitter’s methodology in the original search: “The relative ease of discovery raises serious questions as to just how many Russian-linked bots may still be active on Twitter, how the company identifies and removes such accounts, and whether its process for identifying accounts for its evidence was inadequate.” ¹²⁵

Twitter suspended each of the accounts identified by Buzzfeed. An internal announcement of the policy posted in the Twitter Files conceded that Twitter staffers “could expect more investigation of accounts” and the process would repeat itself. “Reporters now know this is a model that works,” concluded the author of the message. ¹²⁶

Afterward, according to Taibbi, “Twitter soon settled on its future posture” of suspending every account that had been “identified by the U.S. intelligence community.” ¹²⁷ “Twitter let the ‘USIC’ into its moderation process,” concluded Taibbi. “It would not leave.” ¹²⁸

FBI-Twitter Connections

Many document releases from the Twitter Files covered the close working relationship that developed between the FBI and Twitter staff after 2017, particularly the period from January 2020 through the purchase of the firm by Elon Musk in late 2022.

“Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” wrote Matt Taibbi. “Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.” ¹²⁹

“As of 2020,” according to Michael Shellenberger’s analysis of Twitter Files, “there were so many former FBI employees — ‘Bu alumni’ — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals.” ¹³⁰

Taibbi wrote that by January 2021, internal messages showed “Twitter executives getting a kick out of intensified relationships with federal agencies.” ¹³¹

Providing one example, Taibbi wrote: “Here’s Trust and Safety head Yoel Roth, lamenting a lack of ‘generic enough’ calendar descriptions to concealing his ‘very interesting’ meeting partners.” ¹³²  

The image showed the discussion, with Roth ending with sarcasm regarding a meeting he supposedly should not have been talking about: “DEFINITELY NOT meeting with the FBI I SWEAR.” ¹³³  

Shellenberger reported the contents of an August 2022 memo in which Twitter staffers were preparing for a September 2022 meeting with the FBI to discuss the Bureau’s desire to “convince us to produce more FBI EDRs.” ¹³⁴

Shellenberger explained: “EDRs are an “emergency disclosure request,” a warrantless search.” ¹³⁵   

One Twitter Files report revealed a January 2021 email to Jim Baker, Twitter’s deputy general counsel and a former FBI lawyer. The subject line read: “Run the business – we made money!” Noting that Twitter had created “a reimbursement program for our legal process response from the FBI,” the Twitter employee told Baker the firm had “collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!” ¹³⁶  

Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF)

In the fall of 2017, the FBI created a Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) under the supervision of the Bureau’s Counterintelligence Division. In 2021, the FBI director informed Congress that the purpose of the FITF was to “identify and counteract malign foreign influence operations targeting the United States.” FBI agent Laura Dehmlow was the head of the FITF. ^{137 138}

Reporting on his access to the Twitter Files, Matt Taibbi wrote that the FITF “swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.” ¹³⁹

“The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA,” wrote Taibbi. This included “requests from a wide array of smaller actors – from local cops to media to state governments.” ¹⁴⁰

“A chief end result,” according to the documents Taibbi reviewed, “was that thousands of official ‘reports’ flowed to Twitter from all over, through the FITF and the FBI’s San Francisco field office.” ¹⁴¹

The FBI sent some of the most sensitive information to Twitter via Teleporter, described by Taibbi as “a one-way platform in which many communications were timed to vanish.” ¹⁴²

The Twitter Files contain a 2020 report from Yoel Roth, in which Roth said he participated in a weekly “sync with FBI/DHS/DNI” (i.e.: FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence). ¹⁴³

In a September 2022 email reported by Taibbi, Twitter senior legal executive Stacia Cardille revealed she had been attending monthly meetings with the same three intelligence agencies. ¹⁴⁴ In what appeared to be a regular report to Jim Baker, Cardille wrote that the FBI was “adamant” that no impediments existed to sharing classified information with Twitter and other social media firms. ¹⁴⁵

“This passage underscores the unique one-big-happy-family vibe between Twitter and the FBI,” observed Taibbi of the Cardille report. “With what other firm would the FBI blithely agree to ‘no impediments’ to classified information?” ¹⁴⁶  

FBI coordination with CIA and DHS

“Despite its official remit being ‘Foreign Influence,’” the FITF and the SF FBI office became [a] conduit for mountains of domestic fringiest material,” wrote Taibbi in a Twitter Files analysis. “It seemed to strike no one as strange that a ‘Foreign Influence’ task force was forwarding thousands of mostly domestic reports, along with the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] . . .” ¹⁴⁷

According to the “Mission” page on its website, the Department of Homeland Security is tasked with counterterrorism, border security, cyberspace and critical infrastructure security, disaster preparedness, and securing national transportation and trade. Taibbi reported that an election-related component was added to the cybersecurity mission through a partnership between DHS and the Center for Internet Security (CIS), a nonprofit funded mostly with government grants. ^{148 149}

In addition to CIS, Taibbi also identified the Electoral Integrity Project, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Laboratory, and the University of Washington’s Center for Informed Policy as part of “a series of government-affiliated think tanks that mass-review content” on social media. ¹⁵⁰

Taibbi reported that CIS created a Partner Support Portal for DHS to forward concerns about accounts to social media firms. As an example of how it worked, he reported the contents of an October 2020 internal Twitter discussion regarding how to address a complaint sent from the California Secretary of State (SOS) through the CIS portal. ¹⁵¹

The California officials had earlier complained about a Twitter post from President Donald Trump. According to the Twitter employee handling the follow up contact, the California SOS office wanted to know “why Twitter didn’t take any action” against the Trump post. ¹⁵²

“The government,” in one form or another, wrote Taibbi, “was in constant contact not just with Twitter but with virtually every major tech firm” including “Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, even Pinterest, and many others.” ¹⁵³  

Typical meetings of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, according to Taibbi, also “nearly always” included “one or two attendees” identified as “OGA,” for “Other Governmental Agency.” Taibbi interviewed former Central Intelligence Agency officers and contractors who confirmed “OGA” is used as a euphemistic cover for “CIA.” ¹⁵⁴

An “OGA briefing” about foreign concerns, was “almost always” on the meeting agenda of the Foreign Influence Task Force, wrote Taibbi. ¹⁵⁵ (The CIA is mostly prohibited from operating legally within the United States. ¹⁵⁶ )  Taibbi also noted the OGAs “ended up sharing intelligence through the FBI and FITF not just with Twitter, but with Yahoo!, Twitch, Clouldfare, LinkedIn, even Wikimedia.” ¹⁵⁷

In September 2020, according to the Twitter Files, FBI agent Elvis Chan and Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, discussed the creation of an “Election Communication Platform.” The one-way communication portal for the U.S. intelligence community to send messages to Twitter and other social media firms was to be managed by the FBI’s FITF. Roth wrote that the “easy ones” (i.e.: obvious government agencies) to include on the platform would be the FBI, DHS, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Others expressing interest in participating, according to Roth, were the U.S. Department of State, the National Security Agency, and the CIA. ¹⁵⁸

Influence over Account Suspensions

“Especially as the election approached in 2020, the FITF/FBI overwhelmed Twitter with requests, sending lists of hundreds of problem accounts,” wrote Matt Taibbi, of his examination of the Twitter Files data. “Requests arrived and were escalated from all over: from Treasury [Department of Treasury], the NSA [National Security Agency], virtually every state,  the HHS [Department of Health and Human Services], from the FBI and DHS [Department of Homeland Security], and more.” ¹⁵⁹

Reporting on a November 2022 email, Taibbi wrote that it demonstrated a “master-canine quality of the FBI’s relationship to Twitter.” ¹⁶⁰

“Hello Twitter contacts,” began the email from the FBI’s San Francisco office. “FBI San Francisco is notifying you of the below accounts which may potentially constitute violations of Twitter’s Terms of Service for any action or inaction deemed appropriate within Twitter policy.” ¹⁶¹  

“Twitter personnel in that case went on to look for reasons to suspend all four accounts,” wrote Taibbi. He reported that the content of one of the four was filled with obvious humor, such as one post on Election Day “reminding” Republicans to vote the next day. ¹⁶²

An October 27, 2020, email from an FBI official to a Twitter staffer asked: “Do you guys have a list of those 132 accounts action was taken against on 09/29/2020? We wanted to get process served on those accounts.” The Twitter Files messages show that within two minutes the request was forwarded to Yoel Roth for his attention. ¹⁶³

“Requests poured in from FBI offices all over the country, day after day, hour after hour,” wrote Taibbi, in his analysis of the exchange about the 132 accounts. “If Twitter didn’t act quickly, questions came: ‘Was action taken?’ ‘Any movement?’” ¹⁶⁴  

Taibbi also reported the Bureau “was clearly tailoring searches to Twitter’s policies” and that its “complaints were almost always depicted somewhere as a ‘possible terms of service violation.’” ¹⁶⁵

He provided internal communications showing Twitter’s executives noticed this behavior. In November 2020, Stacia Cardille, the firm’s senior legal executive, complained to Jim Baker that she’d received ten requests in five days in which it appeared the FBI was just “doing keyword searches for violations.” Baker, a former FBI lawyer, responded that it was “odd they are searching for violations of our policies.”

Suppression of Satire

According to Twitter Files communications reported by Matt Taibbi, FBI/FITF requests for suppression of Twitter accounts included instances where the commentary being reported by the FBI as election interference was instead obvious satire. ¹⁶⁶

In one example, Taibbi examined six accounts flagged as violations of Twitter’s terms of service in two November 2022 emails sent from the FBI’s San Francisco field office. ¹⁶⁷

In one case, an Election Day 2022 post from the account “@byrum_wade” was flagged by the FBI, with this note sent to Twitter: “… display name ‘ULTRA MAGA’, stating the following: ‘Americans, Vote today. Democrats you vote Wednesday 9^th.’” ¹⁶⁸

A nearly identical satirical statement, but from the opposite partisan perspective, was flagged for the account of Twitter user “@FromMA”: “I want to remind republicans to vote tomorrow, Wednesday November 9.” ¹⁶⁹

And in a third example, a post from the account “@ClairFosterPHD” warned “I’m a ballot counter in my state. If you’re not wearing a mask, I am not counting your vote. #safetyfirst.” ¹⁷⁰

She added in a follow up: “For every negative comment on this post I am adding another vote for the democrats.” ¹⁷¹

Taibbi reported that “@FromMA” and “@ClairFosterPHD” were the only two of from the batch of six accounts flagged by the FBI that did not get suspended by Twitter. ¹⁷²

When asked about her inclusion on the FBI’s list, the user behind “@ClairFosterPHD” told Taibbi: “Anyone who cannot discern obvious satire from reality has no place making decisions for others or working for the feds.” ¹⁷³

Taibbi also examined another email from the FBI to Twitter that flagged 25 accounts. Sent during the same final week of the 2022 election, this group was flagged by the Bureau for “disseminating false information about the time, place or manner of the upcoming elections.” ¹⁷⁴

In this note, FBI agent Elvis Chan added: “Let us know if you decide to take any actions against these accounts based on our tipper to you.” The Twitter Files showed a follow up note back to the FBI in which Twitter reported taking some action (either blocking some content from, or outright suspending) 16 of the 25 on the list. ¹⁷⁵

Taibbi reported that many of the 25 were also satirical or “low engagement.” One of the high engagement accounts reported by the FBI, but not acted against by Twitter, was that of actor Billy Baldwin. ¹⁷⁶

The twitter handle “@Tiberius444” was another account that did not receive any known sanctions from Twitter, despite being one of the 25 reported by the Bureau. ¹⁷⁷

“I can’t believe the FBI is policing jokes on Twitter,” responded the user behind “@Tiberius444,” when contacted by Taibbi. “That’s crazy.” ¹⁷⁸

Congressional Pressure

The Twitter Files reports also show the firm was under pressure from Congress to cooperate with the FBI. In January 2020, one Twitter executive sent a note concerning this point to Yoel Roth. “We have seen a sustained (If uncoordinated) effort by the IC [intelligence community] to push us to share more info & change our API policies,” said the executive to Roth. “They are probing & pushing everywhere they can (including by whispering to congressional staff).” ¹⁷⁹

Similarly, in September 2020, according to a Twitter Files report from Matt Taibbi, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) “seemed to need reassurance Twitter was taking FBI direction.” ¹⁸⁰

Taibbi reported internal Twitter communications from September 1, 2020, beginning with an early afternoon message in which the SSCI was informed that Twitter was “suspending five Twitter accounts for platform manipulation that we can reliably attribute to Russian state actors.” The note assessed that the five accounts “achieved little impact,” were “low quality and spammy,” and that “most Tweets from these accounts received few, if any, Likes or Retweets.” ¹⁸¹  

The note concluded by informing SSCI that Twitter had “worked closely with the FBI Foreign Influence Task Force” to identify the five accounts. An SSCI staffer responded, asking for clarification regarding how close the cooperation had been and whether the FBI had provided the suggestion to investigate the accounts. ¹⁸²  

In response, Stacia Cardille asked Yoel Roth if it was okay to tell the SSCI that the FBI had provided the tips. Roth responded that he would “actually encourage it” and that Twitter should “give the FBI kudos where they’ve clearly earned them.” ¹⁸³  

Removal of Trump from Twitter

On January 8, 2021, during the final two weeks of the Trump administration, Twitter blocked and permanently removed the account used by then-President Donald Trump. The account was reinstated in November 2022, following new guidelines put in place after the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk. Facebook had blocked Trump’s account on January 7, 2021, the morning after the U.S. Capitol riot. ^{184 185}

The initial removal of Trump’s Twitter account was taken in direct response to then-president’s conduct during and immediately after the January 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. A Twitter Files report quotes one of the firm’s executives writing that the suspension was also due to “the narrative that Trump and his friends have pursued over the course of this election and frankly last 4+ years. . .” ^{186 187}

Previous Policy Regarding World Leaders

A January 2018 policy statement showed Twitter intended to protect “controversial” statements made by political figures: “Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate. It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.” ¹⁸⁸

In an October 2019 Twitter issued additional guidance which stated that “the accounts of world leaders are not above our policies entirely.” The statement cited examples of behavior that would lead to “enforcement action for any account on our service,” such as promoting terrorism and “clear and direct threats of violence against an individual.” ¹⁸⁹

The October 2019 guidance also clarified that threats of violence made within the context of “direct interactions with fellow public figures and/or commentary on political and foreign policy issues would likely not result in enforcement.” The general rule was to “err on the side of leaving the content up if there is a clear public interest in doing so.” ¹⁹⁰

In a Twitter Files report, Bari Weiss provided examples of controversial statements that were not penalized by permanent suspension. ¹⁹¹

In June 2018, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote: “#Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen.” ¹⁹²  

“Twitter neither deleted the tweet nor banned the Ayatollah,” reported Weiss. ¹⁹³

“Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past,” said then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in an October 2020 Twitter statement.

According to Weiss, “Twitter deleted his tweet for “glorifying violence,” but he remains on the platform.” ¹⁹⁴  

Similarly, Weiss wrote that “Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Nigeria, incited violence against pro-Biafra groups. . . Twitter deleted the tweet but didn’t ban Buhari.” ¹⁹⁵  

Pressure to Remove Trump

According to Michael Shellenberger, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey faced “internal and external pressure” to ban President Trump from the platform “after the events of Jan. 6.” Twitter Files reports from Shellenberger and Bari Weiss described the pressure. ^{196 197}

Matt Taibbi wrote that Trump’s account was temporarily “bounced” (suspended) for 12 hours during the day on January 6. ¹⁹⁸  

Weiss reported that after January 6, 2021, Twitter staff “organized to demand their employer ban Trump.” She provided screenshots of internal discussions among staff in which they expressed their disappointment that the account was still active. “We have to do the right thing here and ban this account,” wrote one employee on January 8. ¹⁹⁹

“In the early afternoon of January 8,” wrote Weiss, “The Washington Post published an open letter signed by over 300 Twitter employees to CEO Jack Dorsey demanding Trump’s ban.”

In addition to the demand for a permanent ban, the letter also blamed Twitter for abetting Trump’s behavior. ²⁰⁰

“Third, we request an independent investigation into Twitter’s role in these events,” wrote the Twitter employees. “Despite our efforts to serve the public conversation, as Trump’s megaphone, we helped fuel the deadly events of January 6th. We request an investigation into how our public policy decisions led to the amplification of serious anti-democratic threats. We must learn from our mistakes in order to avoid causing future harm.” ²⁰¹   

As one examples of external pressure, Shellenberger cited an official statement from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on the afternoon of January 6, in which ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that “social media companies should suspend his accounts ASAP as they would do for anyone else advocating disinformation and promoting violence. It’s time.” ^{202 203}

Similarly, on the afternoon of January 7, former First Lady Michelle Obama issued a statement asking, “Silicon Valley companies to stop enabling this monstrous behavior—and go even further than they have already by permanently banning this man from their platforms.” ^{204 205}

Internal Resistance to Banning Trump

Twitter Files internal messages show some employees reluctant to ban Trump. Bari Weiss wrote that such voices “appear to have been a distinct minority within the company,” and that “Across Slack channels, many Twitter employees were upset that Trump hadn’t been banned earlier.” ²⁰⁶  

In a one example from a January 7 message, a Twitter employee observed: “Maybe because I am from China I deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation.” ²⁰⁷  

“This might be an unpopular opinion but one off ad hoc decisions like this that don’t appear rooted in policy are imho a slippery slope…,” wrote another Twitter employee of the possibility of banning Trump. “This now appears to be a fiat by an online platform CEO with a global presence that can gatekeep speech for the entire world.” ²⁰⁸  

Lack of Policy Grounds for Removal

Weiss wrote that Twitter’s top content gatekeepers could not find clear violations of Twitter policy to justify removing then-President Trump’s account. ²⁰⁹

The moderators looked specifically at a Twitter statement Trump issued on the morning of January 8 – the day that would end with the removal of his account. ²¹⁰ “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” Trump wrote. “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” ²¹¹

The Twitter staff discussed whether this statement was inciting violence—a possible violation of the firm’s exceptions to removing world leaders. “I don’t see the incitement of fear,” wrote one employee. Additional comments shown in the thread included “I think we’d have a hard time saying this was incitement,” and “Don’t see the incitement angle here.” ²¹²

“I also am not seeing clear or coded incitement in the DJT tweet,” responded Twitter policy official Anika Navaroli to the discussion. ²¹³

Navaroli presented this finding to the Twitter elections team: “as an fyi, Safety has assessed the DJT Tweet above and determined that there is no violation of our policies at this time.” ²¹⁴   

According to Weiss, Navaroli later claimed the following when she testified to a U.S. House committee investigating the January 6 riot: “For months I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that if nothing—if we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die.” ²¹⁵   

Manufacturing Pretext for Removal

“Less than 90 minutes after Twitter employees had determined that Trump’s tweets were not in violation of Twitter policy,” wrote Weiss, “Vijaya Gadde—Twitter’s Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust—asked whether it could, in fact, be ‘coded incitement to further violence.’” ²¹⁶  

“A few minutes later,” wrote Weiss, “Twitter employees on the ‘scaled enforcement team’ suggested that Trump’s tweet may have violated Twitter’s Glorification of Violence policy—if you interpreted the phrase ‘American Patriots’ to refer to the rioters.” ²¹⁷  

The scaled enforcement team, according to an internal discussion, decided then-President Trump was comparable to the “leader of a terrorist group responsible for violence/deaths comparable to Christchurch shooter or Hitler and on that basis and on the totality of his Tweets, he should be de-platformed.” ²¹⁸  

Later that day Trump’s Twitter account was permanently removed. ²¹⁹

Aftermath

“Many at Twitter were ecstatic” following the removal of then-President Trump, wrote Weiss. She provided screenshots of internal discussions wherein employees congratulated one another for “extraordinary acts of awesomeness” and “impactful work.” ²²⁰

“By the next day,” wrote Weiss, the “employees expressed eagerness to tackle ‘medical misinformation’ as soon as possible.” ²²¹

“Very excited to see us handling more categories of misinformation,” wrote one employee, in a January 11, 2021, internal communication. “For the longest time, Twitter’s stance was that we aren’t the arbiter of truth, which I respected but never gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.” ²²²   

Weiss also wrote that the heads of government in Germany, France, Mexico, and other nations reacted negatively to or condemned the decision to remove Trump from the platform. ²²³

Suppression of Hunter Biden Story

On October 14, 2020, during the final weeks of the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post reported a story based on the contents of a laptop computer that had allegedly been used by Hunter Biden, son of then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Emails on the device appeared to reveal controversial contacts and potential business dealings with foreign governments involving the Bidens and other figures. ^{224 225 226}

Twitter responded by locking the account of the newspaper and blocking access to the story, citing it as a violation of the firm’s “hacked materials” policy. The Twitter account of then-Trump White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany was also locked, after she made reference to the Post report. Facebook implemented a similar but less restrictive policy, limiting the spread of the story on the platform. ^{227 228 229}

Twitter informed the newspaper that the account would not be unlocked until the Post removed its original references to the Hunter Biden report. The newspaper did not comply, and the account remained locked for two weeks. ²³⁰

“Twitter took extraordinary steps to suppress the story, removing links and posting warnings that it may be ‘unsafe,’” reported Matt Taibbi. “They even blocked its transmission via direct message, a tool hitherto reserved for extreme cases, e.g. child pornography.” ²³¹

Based on internal communications from the Twitter Files, Taibbi wrote that the decision to block the story and the New York Post Twitter account was “was made at the highest levels of the company, but without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey, with former head of legal, policy and trust Vijaya Gadde playing a key role.” ²³²

Testifying in Congress in mid-November 2020, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said the decision to block the accounts and restrict access to the story was “a mistake that we made, both in terms of the intention of the policy and also the enforcement action of not allowing people to share it publicly or privately.” ²³³

Russia Allegations

On October 19, 2020, less than a week after the New York Post story was published, dozens of former U.S. intelligence community officials released an open letter to the media that implied the contents of the laptop had been fabricated or otherwise compromised by Russian intelligence. The authors wrote that the story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” but stated “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.” Among others, the letter was cosigned by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and three former CIA directors: John Brennan, Michael Hayden, and Leon Panetta. ²³⁴

More than two years after the October 2020 controversy, in November 2022, an independent review commissioned by CBS News verified what the New York Post had reported. The laptop’s contents had been genuine, had belonged to Hunter Biden, and had not been tampered with. ²³⁵

FBI “Primed” Twitter’s Response

Michael Shellenberger wrote that “during all of 2020, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Yoel Roth [then Twitter’s head of site integrity] to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian ‘hack and leak’ operation.” ²³⁶

Shellenberger noted that the FBI was aware of and in possession of the laptop one year before the New York Post controversy occurred. The FBI had taken possession of the laptop in December 2019, after the Bureau was alerted to the computer’s existence by the owner of a Delaware computer repair shop. The repairman claimed the damaged device was dropped off by Hunter Biden in April 2019, with a request for recovery of the information on the hard drive. The repairman recovered and copied the information, but said Biden never responded to requests to claim the computer and pay for the service. ^{237 238}

Growing concerned over what the information on the device revealed, the repairman alerted the FBI, and the Bureau seized the computer in December 2019 on the authority of a federal grand jury subpoena. The repairman’s duplicate digital file was later given to the New York Post. ^{239 240}

In December 2020, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity, gave testimony to the Federal Election Commission regarding his contact with the FBI during the year prior to the Hunter Biden laptop controversy. The Twitter Files quoted from Roth’s testimony. ²⁴¹

“Since 2018, I have had regular meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and industry peers regarding election security,” Roth wrote to the FEC. “During these weekly meetings, the federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected ‘hack-and-leak operations’ by state actors might occur in the period shortly before the 2020 presidential election, likely in October. I was told in these meetings that the intelligence community expected that individuals associated with political campaigns would be subject to hacking attacks and that material obtained through those hacking attacks would likely be disseminated over social media platforms, including Twitter. These expectations of hack-and-leak operations were discussed throughout 2020. I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.” ²⁴²  

A similar FBI campaign mentioning “Russian propaganda” occurred with Facebook, according to a statement made by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg during an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan in August 2022. ^{243 244}

Michael Shellenberger’s Twitter Files report summarized Zuckerberg’s statement to Rogan: “The FBI basically came to us [and] was like, ‘Hey… you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in 2016 election. There’s about to be some kind of dump similar to that.’” ^{245 246}

Shellenberger reported that in August 2020, FBI agent Elvis Chan provided Yoel Roth with a briefing on “APT28,” purportedly a Russian hacking group. Shellenberger wrote that before the Hunter Biden story broke, Roth “had been primed to think about” APT28 by these briefings. In support of this point, Shellenberger provided a video interview in which Roth conceded that the New York Post story “set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack-and-leap campaign alarm bells.” ²⁴⁷  

Shellenberger also showed an internal email from September 2020 in which FBI agents Laura Dehmlow and Elvis Chan asked to give a “classified briefing” to Twitter’s Jim Baker, the former FBI general counsel who was presumed to have retained his federal security clearance. ²⁴⁸

Also in the Twitter Files was the agenda for a September 2020 crisis response exercise, sponsored by the Aspen Institute, in which attendees (including Roth) role-played the “Burisma leak”—a hypothetical scenario in which media responds to a potentially manipulated report accusing Hunter and Joe Biden of controversial foreign financial misdeeds. ²⁴⁹

The Twitter Files showed Facebook security officials and the national security reporters for the Washington Post and New York Times also participated in the Aspen exercise. ²⁵⁰  

FBI Influences Suppression of New York Post

According to emails revealed by the Twitter Files, FBI agent Elvis Chan sent a packet of ten documents to Twitter’s Yoel Roth on the evening before the New York Post story appeared. Chan’s email was titled “Information Sharing.” The documents were sent through the secure Teleporter channel between the Bureau and Twitter. Chan asked for and received confirmation from Roth that the documents were received. ²⁵¹  

The Twitter Files show that shortly after the New York Post story appeared on the morning of October 14, 2020, Yoel Roth was not immediately inclined to believe it was in violation of Twitter’s policy. ²⁵²  

“At this time, given the alleged provenance of the materials (a laptop mysteriously dropped off at repair shop in Delaware), it isn’t clearly violative of our Hacked Materials Policy, nor is it clearly in violation of anything else,” wrote Roth in an email that morning. ²⁵³  

Continuing, Roth also wrote that “my personal view on this, unsubstantiated by any hard evidence, is that this feels a lot like a somewhat subtle leak operation,” and that his team would be “developing a recommendation for what, if anything, we want to do over the course of the day today.” ²⁵⁴  

“In response to Roth, Baker—the former FBI lawyer—repeatedly insists that the Hunter Biden materials were either faked, hacked, or both, and a violation of Twitter policy,” reported Shellenberger. “Baker does so over email, and in a Google doc, on October 14 and 15.” ²⁵⁵  

In an email on the morning of October 14, the day the story appeared, Baker argued that “reliable cybersecurity folks” had judged that the formatting of the emails used by the New York Post “looks like they could be complete fabrications.” ²⁵⁶  

Baker received pushback regarding whether the story rose to the level of a violation of Twitter policy, and he responded: “I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked. At this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted.” ²⁵⁷  

Before the end of the first morning, according to Shellenberger, “Twitter execs had bought into a wild hack-and-dump story.” Supporting this point, Shellenberger reported the content of an email from Roth, marked 10:17 am on October 14, wherein Roth had come around to the hack theory. ²⁵⁸

“The suggestion from experts – which rings true – is there was a hack that happened separately, and they loaded the hacked materials on the laptop that magically appeared at a repair shop in Delaware,” wrote Roth. ²⁵⁹  

“In the end, the FBI’s influence campaign aimed at executives at news media, Twitter, & other social media companies worked: they censored & discredited the Hunter Biden laptop story,” concluded Shellenberger. “By Dec. 2020, Baker and his colleagues even sent a note of thanks to the FBI for its work.” ²⁶⁰  

The Twitter Files includes an email chain of the discussion over which FBI agents deserved the notes of appreciation for their role in the policy decision. ²⁶¹

“Also, we should be mindful that the letters could leak and will be subject to FOIA, so we should prepare them with that expectation in mind,” wrote former FBI lawyer Jim Baker, to his Twitter colleagues. ²⁶²  

Ro Khanna Concern Over Free Expression

On the evening of October 14, 2020, after Twitter blocked access to the New York Post story, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) sent an email to Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy and trust. ²⁶³

Matt Taibbi reproduced these emails and wrote that the “humorous exchange” demonstrated the “fundamental problem with tech companies and content moderation: many people in charge of speech know/care little about speech, and have to be told the basics by outsiders.” ²⁶⁴  

In his initial email, Khanna warned Gadde the suppression of the New York Post report had produced a “huge backlash on hill re speech” and offered to chat with her about it. Taibbi wrote that Khanna was the only Democrat he could find in the Twitter Files who raised the free expression concern with Twitter. ²⁶⁵

In her reply, according to Taibbi, Gadde went “into the weeds of Twitter policy, unaware Khanna is more worried about the Bill of Rights.” Taibbi wrote that this led Khanna “to reroute the conversation to the First Amendment, mention of which is generally hard to find in the [Twitter] files.” ²⁶⁶

“Hope you’re well, Vijaya!” replied Khanna, in the response. “But this seems a violation of the 1^st Amendment principles.” ²⁶⁷

Censorship Requests from U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff

The Twitter Files reveal multiple requests from the office of U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) asking Twitter to remove content and users. Matt Taibbi reported that Schiff’s staff “wrote to Twitter quite often, asking that tweets be taken down.” ²⁶⁸

Suspension of Paul Sperry

In November 2020, according to a Twitter Files email produced by Taibbi, Schiff’s staff asked Twitter to suspend Real Clear Investigations reporter Paul Sperry. The request also asked Twitter to “Remove any and all content about Mr. Misko and other Committee staff from its service — to include quotes, retweets, and reactions to that content.” ²⁶⁹

“Mr. Misko” referred to Sean Misko, a staffer on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee when it was chaired by Schiff. In his reporting, Sperry had identified a whistleblower whose testimony had helped fuel the first impeachment of then-President Donald Trump. Sperry also revealed Misko was a close acquaintance of the whistleblower. ²⁷⁰

Schiff was one of the House managers of the impeachment proceeding. ²⁷¹

“Schiff was just angry I outed his impeachment whistleblower and tried to get me banned,” replied Sperry, when informed of the Twitter Files revelations. ²⁷²  

A Twitter employee initially reacted negatively to the request that the firm banish all references to Misko and Schiff staffers. According to the Twitter Files messages produced by Taibbi, her response was “no, this isn’t feasible/we don’t do that.” ²⁷³  

Sperry was suspended from Twitter in August 2022, nearly two years after the request from Schiff’s office. ²⁷⁴  

“They kicked me off the day after Trump’s home was raided, and I was in the middle of tweeting more about the raid and I got a message popping up saying I was permanently suspended,” said Sperry in August 2022. “No reasons were given.” ²⁷⁵  

The suspension of Sperry’s account was lifted after Elon Musk’s purchase of the firm. ²⁷⁶

Request to Remove Joe Biden Parody

In April 2020, Schiff’s staff and the Democratic National Committee both asked Twitter to remove a parody GIF video that mocked then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The clearly doctored GIF showed Biden with his tongue sticking out and a delusional look on his face. The parody account that posted the GIF used the Twitter handle “@SilERabbit” and the username “Nate’s Liver – Commentary.” ^{277 278}

Matt Taibbi reported on the internal discussion within Twitter, in which the firm denied the request. ²⁷⁹  

“This is pretty clearly edited GIF created with humorous intent,” replied Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity. “Any reasonable observer could identify that it’s doctored. And there’s no nexus to harm anyone involved. It’s not a violation of our rules.” ²⁸⁰  

The GIF remained on Twitter, but not without further objections from the Schiff office. ²⁸¹  

“We’re prepared to accept that it doesn’t fall under the policy given, but there’s a slippery slope concern here, and I think it bears further explanation from Twitter why that is the case,” responded a Schiff staffer, in an email reported in the Twitter Files. ²⁸²

U.S. Sen. Angus King’s “Suspected Accounts” List

For one Twitter Files report Matt Taibbi reproduced an email dated October 1, 2018, that was addressed to Yoel Roth and the Twitter Site Integrity team. The email’s subject line was “Suspicious Accounts from Senator Angus King.” ²⁸³

“I spoke with the Campaign Director for Sen. Angus King this morning, who provided a very large target list (attached) of 354 suspicious Twitter accounts they have identified,” wrote the Twitter staffer to the group. ²⁸⁴

When Twitter received this spreadsheet, U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent representing Maine, was in the final five weeks of his reelection campaign against Republican state Sen. Eric Brakey and Democrat Zak Ringelstein. The King spreadsheet included lists labeled “suspected accounts” for both Facebook and Twitter. The majority of notations in the “Why flagged” column on the lists referred to inteactions with the social media profiles of King, or one of his two rivals, or posting of social media messages referencing one of the three candidates. ²⁸⁵

“If Dick Nixon sniffed glue,” wrote Taibbi, “this is what his enemies list might have looked like.” ²⁸⁶

“I’m a Maine lobsterman who got put on @SenAngusKing‘s enemy list because according to his staff I didnt tweet enough good things about him! This is wicked frigged up,” responded the @Maine_dads account, after the Twitter Files report in February 2023. “Should a senator do this to his own constituents ??? I want answers Angus.” ²⁸⁷

King’s spreadsheet shows the politician flagged @Maine_dads to Twitter due to the user being “Anti-King” and identified @Maine_dads as a “Possible Troll, but occasionally expresses positive sentiment about ASK.” ²⁸⁸

Angus Stanley King’s initials are ASK. More than 100 of the 354 spreadsheet entries for Twitter accounts on the King list referenced opinions regarding or opposition to “ASK.” There are four entries flagged “anti-ASK” and five others as “anti-King.” The “troll” definition is applied to 64 of the 354 flagged accounts. ^{289 290}

“That’s what you’ve got to do in these situations,” King said, when asked by a local news reporter about his list. “The problem with attacks on social media is it’s very hard to respond. It’s very hard to know who’s reading a particular post. I think campaigns all over the country are looking at this problem.” ²⁹¹

As of March 2023, the Twitter Files reports had not clarified how many of the accounts Twitter took action against.

Chapo Trap House Podcast

The Twitter handle for Matt Christman (@cushbomb) was one of the so-called “suspected accounts.” Christman is one of the founders of Chapo Trap House (Chapo) a popular left-wing socialist podcast. In October 2018, when his name appeared in the spreadsheet, Chapo was ranked as the top show on the Patreon podcast hosting website and was grossing more than $100,000 per month. The left-leaning Matt Taibbi has been a frequent guest on the show, which has identified him as “Our old pal and first mega-guest.” ^{292 293 294}

The spreadsheet shows King’s political campaign flagged Christman to Twitter because of an “ASK mention.” This notation appeared 54 times on the spreadsheet. ²⁹⁵ [/note]

The spreadsheet also identified Christman as a “troll.” ²⁹⁶

“Angus King is a mediocre senator but I always have a good meal at one of his chain of mid-range steakhouses,” wrote Christman on June8, 2017, in one of at least two satirical posts made prior to King flagging the account to Twitter. ²⁹⁷

Christman returned to the theme at least one more time, on October 3, 2017, one year before King reported him to Twitter. ²⁹⁸

“Senators who are also steakhouses: Angus King (ME-I),” he wrote. “End of list.” ²⁹⁹

“Senator Angus King thinks I’m a troll,” replied Christman in a February 2023 post, after the Twitter Files report was posted. “That’s okay, I’ll keep eating his delicious rib-eyes, succulent sirloins, and mouthwatering filets, all served in a relaxed, family-friendly atmosphere. I will also continue to enjoy his inventive appetizers and craft cocktails.” ³⁰⁰

Zero Hedge Financial Page

The Twitter handle for the financial advice website Zero Hedge (@ZeroHedge) was identified by King’s campaign as a “bot.” The “bot” identifier was used for 220 of the 354 accounts on the spreadsheet. ³⁰¹

“One of the funniest things about the @SenAngusKing suspicious accounts list is that they seemed to think @zerohedge is a bot,” wrote Taibbi. ³⁰²

According to the spreadsheet, Zero Hedge was flagged because the account had been “followed by Brakey,” presumably meaning that King’s republican opponent—or the Republican’s campaign Twitter account—had become a follower of the Zero Hedge account. There were 14 other accounts similarly flagged as “followed by Brakey” or “followed by Ringelstein.” ³⁰³

“Yes, the Maine Senator demanded @ZeroHedge (and 100s more) Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts (and Facebook Groups) be instantly removed for being ‘suspicious,’” wrote one Tyler Durden, a pen name of the financial writers from Zero Hedge. “As one wit on Twitter responded via DM when we remarked on Senator King’s actions: ‘the f**king balls on these people!!’ We could not have said it better.” ³⁰⁴

User @DarleneHBrook

The Twitter account for @DarleneHBrook was identified as a “bot” by King’s spreadsheet and flagged for these reasons: “Anti-ASK, tweet at Maine Dads, 8/2 gun debate #ME politics, abortion, pro Brakey, 9/25 Wind post.” ³⁰⁵

As of March 2023, the @DarleneHBrook page had 9,715 followers, identified “Maine, USA” as the location of the user, and had been reliably posting a variety of Biblical verses and right-of-center political opinions. ³⁰⁶

In the weeks preceding the 2018 election @DarleneHBrook regularly criticized King on policy issues and made favorable statements about his Republican opponent. ³⁰⁷

“Senator Angus King compares the #September11th attacks to Russian hackers,” wrote @DarleneHBrook on September 11, 2018. The post linked to a video showing King making the comparison: “… they used airplanes into towers, now people can use the click of a computer key in St. Petersburg, Russia…” ³⁰⁸

Eric Brakey, King’s Republican opponent in the race, made a campaign issue of King’s position on and alleged benefit from the wind energy industry. ³⁰⁹

“We have a problem in our country…#CronyCaptitalism…#WindPower…Angus King has made a career & made millions of dollars off from the backs of Maine people by exploiting provisions in our tax codes…in order to make money,” wrote @DarleneHBrook in a September 2018 post. ³¹⁰

In an October 2018 post, @DarleneHBock retweeted an Eric Brakey post of a meme accusing King of getting “rich off of the American tax payer using crony capitalism and his buddy Obama.” The meme also included a quote from a December 2013 Real Clear Policy report, which stated King had “founded a wind-energy company” and then “received a $407,000 ‘success’ fee” when the firm secured a $102 million federal loan guarantee. ^{311 312}

Dispute Over Foreign Influence

Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger found repeated instances in the Twitter Files of conflicts between Twitter and U.S. government officials regarding the existence of foreign government propaganda—particularly Russian government influence—on the social media platform.

“Time and again, FBI asks Twitter for evidence of foreign influence & Twitter responds that they aren’t finding anything worth reporting,” wrote Shellenberger of the period leading up to the 2020 election. ³¹³

“Twitter executives struggled against government claims of foreign interference supposedly occurring on their platform and others,” wrote Taibbi. ³¹⁴

Taibbi also showed examples of dead-end searches for state-sponsored propaganda on the platform: “The #TwitterFiles show execs under constant pressure to validate theories of foreign influence – and unable to find evidence for key assertions.” ³¹⁵

In July 2020, intelligence community officials on the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) sent a letter to Yoel Roth, Twitter head of trust and safety, through FBI agent Elvis Chan, challenging a presentation Roth gave to them at a June 2020 briefing. A copy of the FITF letter to Twitter was reported in the Twitter Files. ³¹⁶

“I believe FITF would like a response ahead of our meeting the week of August 10^th,” wrote Chan to Roth, in a cover note forwarding the FITF letter. “I think you can tell from the nature of the questions, that there was quite a bit of discussion within the USIC [United States Intelligence Community] to get clarifications from your company.” ³¹⁷

During the June 2020 briefing, according to the FITF letter, Roth informed the group that Twitter “had not observed much recent activity from official propaganda actors.” ³¹⁸

Explaining the perspective of the intelligence community membership of the FITF, the letter further stated, “other sources we are aware of (including those referenced below) indicate state media actors are prolific users of social media, which seems in contrast to your own analysis.” ³¹⁹

The letter included five references to media and other public reports claiming Russian or “state backed” propaganda efforts were being deployed on social media. ³²⁰

In his analysis, Matt Taibbi reported there was a circular logic in the sources the FITF selected. ³²¹

“This exchange is odd among other things because some of the “bibliography” materials cited by the FITF are sourced to intelligence officials, who in turn cited the public sources,” wrote Taibbi. ³²²

There is an internal memo in the Twitter Files from Roth to Twitter staff regarding the FITF letter. Roth wrote that he was “not particularly comfortable with the Bureau (and by extension the IC [intelligence community]) demanding written answers.” Roth compared the tone of the FITF letter to “more like something we’d get from a congressional committee.” ³²³

“The idea of the FBI acting as conduit for the Intelligence Community is interesting, given that many agencies are barred from domestic operations,” observed Taibbi. ³²⁴

In another follow up message from Roth to staff, Roth challenges the “entire premise” of the FITF’s characterization of the June 2020 briefing. ³²⁵

“I re-reviewed my notes from that briefing,” wrote Roth, “and there’s a specific item calling out official propaganda outlets as a major factor.” ³²⁶

Hamilton 68

In August 2017, the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy launched Hamilton 68, a digital dashboard the group promoted as an effort to “help ordinary people, journalists, and other analysts identify Russian messaging themes and detect active disinformation or attack campaigns as soon as they begin.” Explaining its methodology, ASD claimed, “our analysis has linked 600 Twitter accounts to Russian influence online.” ^{327 328}

“Some of these accounts are directly controlled by Russia, others are users who on their own initiative reliably repeat and amplify Russian themes,” said an ASD description of the Twitter users it was tracking. ³²⁹

“It was a scam,” wrote Matt Taibbi in January 2023. “Instead of tracking how ‘Russia’ influenced American attitudes, Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming.” ³³⁰ His conclusion was based on his review of emails that took place between Twitter employees, beginning in October 2017, shortly after the launch of Hamilton 68. ³³¹

Twitter’s Internal Analysis

“Twitter executives were in a unique position to recreate Hamilton’s list, reverse-engineering it from the site’s requests for Twitter data,” wrote Taibbi. “Concerned about the deluge of Hamilton-based news stories, they did so – and what they found shocked them.” ³³²

Taibbi displayed images of the emails from Yoel Roth, at the time Twitter’s trust and security chief, beginning with one dated October 3, 2017, shortly after Hamilton 68 was launched. ³³³

“At long last I’ve been able to reverse-engineer the list of accounts behind the Hamilton 68 dashboard,” wrote Roth to his coworkers. “The Securing Democracy people have never been willing to release the list to anyone.” ³³⁴

“The selection of accounts is … bizarre, and seemingly quite arbitrary,” Roth continued. “They appear to strongly preference pro-Trump accounts (which they use to assert that Russia is expressing a preference for Trump… even though there’s not good evidence that any of the accounts they selected are or are not actually Russian).” ³³⁵

“I think we need to just call this out on the bullshit it is,” concluded Roth. ³³⁶

Continuing to examine Hamilton 68 in January 2018, Roth told his coworkers there was “no evidence to support the statement that the dashboard is a finger on the pulse of Russian information ops.” ³³⁷

In February 2018, Roth wrote that “these accounts are neither strongly Russian, nor strongly bots; they’re just generally right-leaning users.” ³³⁸

“Hamilton 68 barely had any Russians,” summarized Taibbi. “In fact, apart from a few RT [Russia Today] accounts, it’s mostly full of ordinary Americans, Canadians, and British.” ³³⁹

“I’m increasingly of the opinion that this dashboard is actively damaging and promotes polarization and distrust through its shoddy methodology,” said Roth, in a January 2018 email. “Real people need to know they’ve been unilaterally labeled Russian stooges without evidence or recourse. It’s a major problem.” ³⁴⁰

The late 2017 and early 2018 concerns of the Twitter staff regarding the veracity of the Hamilton 68 tracking list were not publicly revealed until the Twitter Files report posted in late January 2023. Taibbi wrote that Twitter decided against informing the users that they had been listed on the ASD database due to “concerns about taking on the politically connected Alliance for Securing Democracy.” ³⁴¹

Examples of Tracked Accounts

For his Twitter Files report, Taibbi interviewed some of the people on the Hamilton 68 tracking list. He revealed that some were journalists, conventional political activists, and entertainment figures. ³⁴²

The list included well-known right-leaning author and political commentator David Horowitz, whose Twitter account had more than 82,000 followers as of January 2023; right-leaning media figure and activist Dennis Michael Lynch, an account with more than 36,000 followers in early 2023; and left-leaning journalist Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News, an account with more than 12,000 followers in early 2023. ^{343 344}

Dave Shestokas, a lawyer and sometime political candidate, had an account with more than 92,000 followers in January 2023. “I’ve written a book about the U.S. Constitution. How I made a list like this is incredible to me,” said Shestokas, after told by Taibbi that he was on the Hamilton 68 tracking list. ³⁴⁵

“Old Holborn,” a popular satire account, had 78,000 Twitter followers in January 2023. Among them was Nick Pickles, Twitter’s chief of policy when the Hamilton 68 data was first examined by the social media firm’s staff. ³⁴⁶

The Twitter Files reveal Pickles’ incredulous reaction to finding Old Holborn on the propaganda tracking list. ³⁴⁷ “A pretty odd list,” wrote Pickles, in an October 2017 email to Yoel Roth and other Twitter employees. “One of them is a UK guy who is well known as basically a wind-up merchant (oldholborn) and I follow him and wouldn’t say he’s pro-Russian – I can’t even remember him tweeting about Russia.” ³⁴⁸

Pickles was also skeptical of the smaller accounts on the Hamilton 68 list: “The idea that accounts with 5/8/12 followers are somehow propaganda gurus seems odd too.” ³⁴⁹

A non-famous Twitter user on the list had lived through the civil war in Lebanon. “I’m shocked,” she replied, when contacted by Taibbi. “Supposedly in a free world, we are being watched at many levels, by what we say online.” ³⁵⁰

“I’m listed as a foreign bot?” said another person interviewed by Taibbi. “As a proud taxpaying citizen, charitable family man, and honest son of a US Marine w/a Purple Heart, I’m hurt. I deserve better. We all do!” ³⁵¹

Media Citations

Taibbi estimated the content from Hamilton 68 had become the source for “hundreds if not thousands of mainstream print and TV news stories” during the Trump presidency. ³⁵²

“If one goes by volume alone, this oft-cited neoliberal think-tank that spawned hundreds of fraudulent headlines and TV news segments may go down as the single greatest case of media fabulism in American history,” wrote Taibbi. “Virtually every major news organization in America is implicated, including NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and the Washington Post. Mother Jones alone did at least 14 stories pegged to the group’s ‘research.’ Even fact-checking sites like Politifact and Snopes cited Hamilton 68 as a source.” ³⁵³

In one example shown in the Twitter Files, a September 2018 Observer headline read: “Russian Propagandists Seize Kavanaugh Controversy to Sow Division Online.” ³⁵⁴

“Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, Kavanaugh’s name was a trending topic among 600 Twitter accounts disseminating pro-Kremlin narratives, according to the Hamilton 68 dashboard,” claimed the report. ³⁵⁵

As another example, Taibbi showed a September 2017 report from the myth-busting website Snopes.com. Citing Hamilton 68 data, Snopes claimed online criticism of the Committee to Investigate Russia was being promoted by Russian “social media bots, paid trolls, and ‘useful idiots.’” ^{356 357}

The Committee to Investigate Russia (CIR) was a left-leaning advocacy non-profit founded in 2017 by actor, film producer, and longtime left-wing activist Rob Reiner. It promoted the conspiracy theory that former president Donald Trump or his associates collaborated with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election. CIR’s reports included promotion of media stories linked to the debunked “Steele dossier.” CIR disbanded in March 2019, shortly after release of the special counsel investigation, colloquially known as the “Mueller Report,” which did not find evidence to support the conspiracy theory. ^{358 359 360}

An April 2018 Washington Post story cited Hamilton 68 data to report that “Russian-linked Twitter accounts” were artificially inflating online support for Fox News Channel host Laura Ingraham and promotion of the hashtag #IStandWithLaura. Ingraham was then at the center of a controversy for criticizing anti-firearms activist David Hogg and receiving organic Twitter support from right-of-center individuals. ³⁶¹

#ReleaseTheMemo

Also see: Trump-Russia Collusion Claims

On January 18, 2018, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), then under control of Republicans, voted to allow the entire House of Representatives to review the so-called “Nunes Memo.” Written at the behest of then-U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), then the chair of the HPSCI, the classified memo was titled “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” It purported to provide evidence that the FBI had engaged in abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in its investigation of Carter Page during the 2016 presidential election. A former advisor to Donald Trump during the campaign, Page was never formally accused or charged with any wrongdoing. ³⁶²

Five days after the memo was circulated to HPSCI members, it was denounced by U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), an HPSCI committee member, and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) as “a misleading talking points ‘memo’ authored by Republican staff that selectively references and distorts highly classified information.” ³⁶³

Among the major allegations, the Nunes memo stated the FBI had relied upon the so-called Steele dossier to obtain permission to conduct secret surveillance of Page. Though initially promoted as legitimate by Schiff and others, the dossier was ultimately debunked as a collection of unsubstantiated claims created by a contractor being paid by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. ^{364 365 366}

Almost two years later, in December 2019, numerous Nunes memo allegations were subsequently verified by a report from the Department of Justice Inspector General (IG), which found 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” with the information the Bureau submitted to obtain the FISA warrants. The IG debunked the claims made in the Steele dossier and reported “many basic and fundamental errors” and “extensive compliance failures” committed by the FBI during its investigation of Page. ³⁶⁷

Though initially a classified document when circulated to the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives on January 18, 2018, rumors of the Nunes memo’s general assertions about the Page investigation leaked to the public within hours, and a “#ReleaseTheMemo” hashtag campaign began trending on Twitter. ³⁶⁸

On January 23, Congressional Democrats issued open letters to Twitter in which they alleged Russian government propaganda, rather than organic public support from Americans, was driving the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign. ³⁶⁹

“Several Twitter hashtags, including #ReleaseTheMemo, calling for release of these talking points attacking the Mueller investigation were born in the hours after the Committee vote,” wrote Schiff and Feinstein. “According to the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, this effort gained the immediate attention and assistance of social media accounts linked to Russian influence operations. By Friday, January 19, 2018, the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag was ‘the top trending hashtag among Twitter accounts believed to be operated by Kremlin-linked groups.’” ³⁷⁰

“If these reports are accurate,” they warned, “we are witnessing an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process.” ³⁷¹

Later that day, in their separate open letter, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) alleged that the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag was “creating a false impression of grassroots support for partisan efforts to disrupt the Russia investigation and shut down the federal government.” ³⁷²

“We find it reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans,” wrote Whitehouse and Blumenthal. ³⁷³

Most corporate media reports conformed to the same narrative. Showing several examples from the Washington Post and other sources, Taibbi wrote that the “national media in January and early February of 2018 denounced the Nunes report in oddly identical language, calling it a ‘joke.’” ³⁷⁴

During the last two weeks of January 2018 the Washington Post ran at least six news stories where the Hamilton 68 data and #ReleaseTheMemo were both mentioned. ³⁷⁵

The Twitter Files show the social media firm’s staff found no evidence of Russian influence over the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag and had attempted to warn Blumenthal staffers and other Democrats away from Hamilton 68 rumors. ³⁷⁶

Matt Taibbi reported that Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, “couldn’t find any Russian connection to #ReleaseTheMemo – at all.” ³⁷⁷

A Twitter report revealed by Taibbi summarized the firm’s investigation of #ReleaseTheMemo. It concluded that “engagement was overwhelmingly organic and driven by strong VIT [very important tweeter] engagement.” Among the supportive VIT’s identified by the Twitter investigation were those of Wikileaks, Donald Trump Jr., and then-U.S. Rep Steve King (R-IA). ³⁷⁸

The Twitter Files also show that on January 23, before the Blumenthal and Whitehouse open letter was released, a Blumenthal staffer contacted Twitter for information. ³⁷⁹

“I tried to warn him off this particular storyline because we don’t believe these are bots,” wrote Carlos Monje, then Twitter’s director of policy, in an internal update to other staffers. ³⁸⁰

Another Twitter employee advised that because there was “little reason to believe it’s a big Russian propaganda movement” that they should warn the Blumenthal staffer that “it could come back to make him look silly.” ³⁸¹

“Blumenthal isn’t always looking for real and nuanced solutions,” Monje warned. “He wants to get credit for pushing us further. And he may move on only when the press moves on.” ³⁸²

And as a result, Taibbi concluded that “reporters from the AP to Politico to NBC to Rolling Stone continued to hammer the “Russian bots” theme, despite a total lack of evidence.” ³⁸³

PsyOps Assistance for Defense Department

In a Twitter Files report, left-leaning journalist Lee Fang revealed that Twitter helped the U.S Department of Defense conduct psychological influence operations (called “psyops”) on the platform. ³⁸⁴

“Twitter has claimed for years that they make concerted efforts to detect & thwart [government] backed platform manipulation,” wrote Fang, in December 2022. “But behind the scenes, Twitter gave approval & special protection to the U.S. military’s online psychological influence ops. Despite knowledge that Pentagon propaganda accounts used covert identities, Twitter did not suspend many for around 2 years or more. Some remain active.” ³⁸⁵  

Fang also noted: “The conduct with the U.S. military’s covert network stands in stark contrast with how Twitter has boasted about rapidly identifying and taking down covert accounts tied to state-backed influence operations, including Thailand, Russia, Venezuela, and others since 2016.” ³⁸⁶

Anti-Propaganda Policy

Fang provided congressional testimony from June 2020 in which Twitter claimed to have a strong policy against government-sponsored propaganda. ³⁸⁷

“Combatting attempts to interfere in conversations on Twitter remains a top priority for the company, and we continue to invest heavily in our detection, disruption, and transparency efforts related to state-backed information operations,” said Twitter policy director Nick Pickles to Congress. “Our goal is to remove bad faith actors and to advance public understanding of these critical topics.” ^{388 389}  

“Twitter defines state-backed information operations as coordinated platform manipulation efforts that can be attributed with a high degree of confidence to state-affiliated actors,” Pickles continued. “State-backed information operations are typically associated with misleading, deceptive, and spammy behavior. These behaviors differentiate coordinated manipulative behavior from legitimate speech on behalf of individuals and political parties.” ^{390 391}

PsyOps Assistance

In July 2017, according to Twitter emails revealed by Fang, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the Defense Department’s command headquarters for the Middle East, sent a list of 52 Arab-language Twitter accounts it had created and asked for them to receive “whitelisted” status. The email stated the accounts were “accounts we use to amplify certain messages.” ³⁹²

Before requesting the changes, the CENTCOM email author began with this observation: “. . . sure is tough to do web ops when you can’t Tweet!” ³⁹³

The CENTCOM request was granted by Twitter, according to emails Fang examined. The enhanced status, according to Fang, is how Twitter “essentially provides verification status to the accounts,” makes them “exempt from spam/abuse flags” and “more visible/likely to trend on hashtags.” ³⁹⁴  

CENTCOM flagged six of the 52 addresses as “priority accounts” and asked for these to receive Twitter’s blue check mark, at the time the firm’s verification that an account was under the control of the real person or group it is claiming to be. ³⁹⁵

According to Fang: “The CENTCOM accounts on the list tweeted frequently about U.S. military priorities in the Middle East, including promoting anti-Iran messages, promotion of the Saudi Arabia-U.S. backed war in Yemen, and ‘accurate’ U.S. drone strikes that claimed to only hit terrorists.” ³⁹⁶   

Fang wrote that CENTCOM later changed the bios in many accounts to make them appear to be “seemingly organic profiles,” with names such as “Euphrates Pulse” and manipulated photos to enhance the perception of authenticity. ³⁹⁷

“The U.S. propaganda network relentlessly pushed narratives against Russia, China, and other foreign countries,” observed Fang. “They accused Iran of ‘threatening Iraq’s water security and flooding the country with crystal meth,’ and of harvesting the organs of Afghan refugees.” ³⁹⁸  

Cover-up and Exposure

In August 2022, the Stanford Internet Observatory released a report revealing “an interconnected web of accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and five other social media platforms that used deceptive tactics to promote pro-Western narratives in the Middle East and Central Asia.” ³⁹⁹

Twitter responded to the report by removing the accounts that had been identified and, according to Fang, in doing so was “cast as an unbiased hero” in the media for “evenly applying its policies” and being “proactive in suspending” the Defense Department accounts. ⁴⁰⁰

“The reality is much more murky,” concluded Fang. He wrote that, “many emails from throughout 2020 show that high-level Twitter executives were well aware of DoD’s vast network of fake accounts & covert propaganda and did not suspend the accounts.” ⁴⁰¹

As one of several examples, Fang reported the contents of a July 2020 email from Twitter’s deputy general counsel Jim Baker. Baker revealed he knew the Defense Department was looking for ways to prevent exposure of the Twitter accounts “linked to each other or to DoD or the USG [U.S. government].” Baker, the former general counsel for the FBI, also used the email to criticize the Defense Department for using “poor tradecraft” in the effort to conceal its involvement. ⁴⁰²  

Manipulation of Covid-19 Content

Twitter Files researchers Lee Fang, Alex Berenson, Matt Taibbi, and David Zweig reported internal, governmental and private sector pressure on Twitter to suppress and alter information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. “The United States government pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to elevate certain content and suppress other content about Covid-19,” wrote Zweig. He reported that “both the Trump and Biden administrations directly pressed Twitter executives to moderate the platform’s pandemic content.” ⁴⁰³

Trump Administration

Early in the pandemic, according to Zweig’s report, the Trump administration was concerned about “panic buying.” ⁴⁰⁴

Quoting from Twitter Files documents, Zweig wrote that Twitter and other social media firms cooperated with the Trump administration’s requests to “combat misinformation” regarding “runs on grocery stores.” The documents Zweig reported also showed the Trump White House asking for help combatting conspiracies regarding 5G cell towers. ⁴⁰⁵

In his Twitter Files analysis, Zweig reported that then-President Trump was targeted by senior Twitter staff for his statements regarding the pandemic. According to Zweig, many “Trump tweets led to extensive internal debates.” ⁴⁰⁶

An optimistic post from Trump in October 2020 led to what Zweig characterized as a “surreal exchange” between Twitter deputy counsel Jim Baker, senior legal executive Stacia Cardille, and head of trust and safety Yoel Roth. ⁴⁰⁷

Leaving the hospital after his October 2020 Covid-19 infection, Trump posted praise for the hospital on Twitter, and encouragement for anyone battling the illness. ⁴⁰⁸

“Don’t be afraid of Covid,” said Trump. “Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” ⁴⁰⁹

“Why isn’t this POTUS tweet a violation of our COVID-19 policy (especially the “Don’t be afraid of Covid” statement)?” responded Baker, the former FBI counsel, in a message to Roth and Cardille. ⁴¹⁰

“In short, this tweet is a broad, optimistic statement,” responded Roth. “It doesn’t incite people to do something harmful, nor does it recommend against taking precautions or following mask directives (or other guidelines).” ⁴¹¹

“Curious whether you have a different read on it, though,” Roth concluded his note to Baker. ⁴¹²

In his Twitter Files analysis, Zweig characterized Baker’s reaction as an “example of human bias run amok.” ⁴¹³

Alex Berenson Removal

According to Zweig, one of the “first meeting requests from the Biden White House” to Twitter was to address “COVID misinformation” and the Biden administration’s desire to have independent journalist Alex Berenson removed from Twitter because of Berenson’s vocal skepticism of the efficacy of COVID vaccines. ⁴¹⁴

“In the summer of 2021,” wrote Zweig, “Biden said social media companies were “killing people” for allowing vaccine misinformation. Berenson was suspended hours after Biden’s comments, and kicked off the platform the following month.” ⁴¹⁵

“Berenson sued (and then settled with) Twitter,” reported Zweig. “In the legal process Twitter was compelled to release certain internal communications, which showed direct White House pressure on the company to take action on Berenson.” ⁴¹⁶

In one of the messages reproduced by Zweig, a Twitter staffer reported on the outcome of an April 2021 meeting with the White House, and noted that “they had one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off the platform. . .” ⁴¹⁷

Berenson’s Twitter account was reinstated in August 2022, as an outcome of the settlement of his lawsuit against the social media firm. ⁴¹⁸

Other Biden Administration Removal Requests

In his report, titled “How Twitter rigged the Covid debate,” David Zweig wrote that the Biden administration “repeatedly attempted to directly influence” the accounts and COVID information presented on Twitter. ⁴¹⁹

Zweig reproduced a December 2022 note in which Lauren Culbertson, Twitter’s head of public policy, summarized the firm’s interactions with the White House. ⁴²⁰

“The Biden team was not satisfied with Twitter’s enforcement approach as they wanted Twitter to do more to de-platform several accounts,” Culbertson reported back to her coworkers. “Because of this dissatisfaction, we were asked to join several other calls. They were very angry in nature.” ⁴²¹

Twitter responded by suppressing views, according to Zweig, including “many from doctors and scientific experts—that conflicted with the official positions of the White House.” ⁴²²

Zweig reported he found “countless instances of tweets labeled as ‘misleading’ or taken down entirely, sometimes triggering account suspensions, simply because they veered from CDC [Centers for Disease Control] guidance or differed from establishment views.” ⁴²³

“Information that challenged that view, such as showing harms of vaccines, or that could be perceived as downplaying the risks of Covid, especially to children, was subject to moderation, and even suppression,” Zweig concluded. “No matter whether such views were correct or adopted abroad.” ⁴²⁴

Suppression of Martin Kulldorff

In March 2021, Twitter content moderators placed a “Misleading” label on a post from Martin Kulldorff, at the time an epidemiologist and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and attached a note showing visibility of the post had been restricted: “This Tweet can’t be replied to, shared or liked.” ⁴²⁵

Kuldorff was the co-author of “An Overview Of Vaccine Development, Approval, And Regulation, with Implications For COVID-19,” a medical research paper published in November 2020 by the Journal of Health Affairs. ^{426 427}

Another Twitter user had asked Kuldorff whether it as advisable for all young people to be vaccinated. ⁴²⁸ “No,” replied Kulldorff, in the subsequently restricted post. “Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.” ⁴²⁹

“Kulldorff’s statement was an expert’s opinion—one which also happened to be in line with vaccine policies in numerous other countries,” observed Zweig. “Yet it was deemed “false information” by Twitter moderators merely because it differed from CDC guidelines.” ⁴³⁰

Zweig reproduced an internal email wherein a Twitter content moderator announced the plan to suppress the epidemiologist’s health policy opinion. ⁴³¹

“Sending a heads up that we will take action on @MartinKulldorff (a professor or Harvard Medical School) for violating our COVID-19 misinformation policy, specifically by sharing false information regarding the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, which goes against CDC guidelines.” ⁴³²

The Kulldorff suppression was one of five such examples Zweig showed in the Twitter Files. In another, he reported that the Twitter account of a Rhode Island physician was permanently suspended because the doctor had committed multiple “misinformation” violations, such as sharing the results from a peer-reviewed research paper examining mRNA vaccines. ⁴³³

Bari Weiss also reported that a “trends blacklist” was used against Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University School of Medicine medical doctor and researcher, because he “argued that Covid lockdowns would harm children.” ⁴³⁴  

Other Controversial Incidents

Using several screenshots of account management tools, Bari Weiss reported that a “search blacklist” was applied to right-of-center talk show host Dan Bongino, and a “do not amplify” tag was used on right-leaning activist Charlie Kirk. ⁴³⁵

Twitter’s internal policies after 2016, along with the influence of the FBI and other government agencies over the platform, led to other notable and controversial incidents of blacklists and content restrictions.

Bias Toward Joe Biden in 2020

Matt Taibbi provided examples of Twitter staff in 2020 using visibility filtering tools against supporters of then-President Donald Trump’s reelection raising concerns about election irregularities. Conversely, Taibbi reported finding “multiple instances” where tweets warning that Trump “may try to steal the election,” were discovered but “approved by senior executives.” ⁴³⁶

As an example, Taibbi cited a pre-election Twitter post wherein former President Trump asserted there would be “Big problems” with mail-in ballots. Twitter shut down comments on the post, denied users the ability to share it with others, and bracketed it with warnings that the content “might be misleading.” ⁴³⁷

Showing Slack messages between Yoel Roth and his team, Taibbi reported that they “didn’t appear to have a particular violation, but still worked fast to make sure Trump’s tweet couldn’t be “replied to, shared, or liked.”” ⁴³⁸  

Taibbi reported that two weeks later a different standard was used on a Twitter post from Eric Holder, former U.S. Attorney General under President Barack Obama. In this example, Holder claimed that voting by mail-in ballots had become too risky due to a “deliberately crippled Postal Service” and urged “everyone to now vote in person; early vote or use drop boxes.” ⁴³⁹

Twitter’s content moderators initially applied a warning label to the post because it questioned the security of mail-in balloting. But the internal Twitter discussion showed the label didn’t stay there. ⁴⁴⁰   

“Hey folks – can we reverse the label on this tweet,” wrote Yoel Roth, referencing the Holder comment. “Everything in it is factually accurate.” The Twitter Files show that the warning label was removed ten minutes later. ⁴⁴¹  

Screenshots of Twitter Slack discussions showed at least two other incidents regarding Twitter users claimed Trump and the U.S. Supreme Court would steal the election. In both cases a lower-level Twitter enforcement staffer was inclined to attach a warning label or other visibility filtering. But in each case this instinct was overruled by senior officials. ⁴⁴²

Roth responds directly in one example: “Not seeing a violation here?” ⁴⁴³

Mike Huckabee Joke

In a late October 2020 pre-election post on Twitter, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) joked that he had filled out a “stack of mail-in ballots and then voted the ballots of my deceased parents and grandparents.” ⁴⁴⁴   

Twitter’s top content enforcement team reacted with an internal debate regarding whether Huckabee had made a “misleading claim” about the election—a violation of Twitter policy. Analyzing the internal discussion, Matt Taibbi concluded that it “reads like a parody” as the “humor averse group” debated what to do. ⁴⁴⁵  

“Agree it’s a joke … but he’s also literally admitting in a tweet to a crime,” argued Twitter’s Yoel Roth. ⁴⁴⁶

“A quick glance indicates that people aren’t confused, but I have concerns,” replies another member of the enforcement team. “Under the policy we don’t make exceptions for jokes or satire. So while I doubt that Huck was really this stupid and is joking, I’m inclined to say that it should come down.” ⁴⁴⁷

The enforcement group concluded it would not sanction or remove the post. ⁴⁴⁸]

Conduct Towards Actor James Woods

On October 24, 2020, according to data revealed in the Twitter Files, the Twitter content enforcement teams received a request from the Democratic National Committee regarding the account used by actor James Woods. Woods holds right-of-center political views and often expresses them on Twitter. ⁴⁴⁹

“Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party,” wrote Matt Taibbi, above a screenshot of the email regarding Woods.

The Twitter Files reporters, according to Taibbi, had started to joke among themselves about the “ubiquitous presence” of Woods’s name “in argued-over Twitter data sets” they were reviewing for their reports. ^{450 451}

Two days after the October 24, 2020, DNC email regarding Woods, Twitter placed warning labels on a post from former President Donald Trump, in which Trump stated there may be “Big problems” with mail-in ballots. Woods responded by taking a screenshot of the Trump post, complete with the warnings, and making a new post of his own. ⁴⁵²

“Twitter is suppressing this Tweet by the President,” wrote Woods. “Here’s a screen grab.” ⁴⁵³  

According to internal discussions reported by Taibbi, the Twitter enforcement staff “despaired of a reason for action” against Woods. ⁴⁵⁴  

One staffer suggested “we action him for something worth the fiasco rather than this screenshot, since we don’t have a firm policy basis for action on his account.” Another asked if it would be better to hold off and then “hit him hard on future vio [violation] with firmer basis.” ⁴⁵⁵

Libs of TikTok Suspensions

“Libs of TikTok,” a right-leaning Twitter account with more than 1.4 million followers as of late 2022 was suspended six times during 2022, according to Twitter Files reports from Bari Weiss. Chaya Raichik, who started the account in November 2020, used it to repost controversial public video content created by left-wing activists. Raichik told Weiss that some of the suspensions were for as long as a week. ⁴⁵⁶

Weiss provided a screenshot of the Libs of TikTok account, as viewed internally at Twitter. It showed the account had a “Trends Blacklist” label attached to it. A warning notification across the top read: “DO NOT TAKE ACTION ON USER WITHOUT CONSULTING WITH SIP-PES.” ⁴⁵⁷ Twitter’s Site Integrity Policy, Policy Escalation Support (SIP-PES) group was the firm’s highest level of content policing. ⁴⁵⁸

“Twitter repeatedly informed Raichik that she had been suspended for violating Twitter’s policy against ‘hateful conduct,’” wrote Weiss. ⁴⁵⁹

But Weiss revealed an October 2022 SIP-PES group memo that said Libs of TikTok had “not directly engaged in behavior violative of the Hateful Conduct policy.” Instead, the memo stated the account was repeatedly shut down because of what a Twitter staffer alleged was a “continued pattern of indirectly violating Twitter’s Hateful Conduct Policy by tweeting content that either leads to or intends to incite harassment against individuals and institutions that support LGBTQA communities.” ⁴⁶⁰  

According to Weiss, SIP-PES “justified her suspensions internally by claiming her posts encouraged online harassment of ‘hospitals and medical providers’ by insinuating ‘that gender-affirming healthcare is equivalent to child abuse or grooming.’” ⁴⁶¹

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