Monday, December 26, 2022

US Spies Pushed Twitter to Censor ‘Anti-Ukraine Narratives’

"The Pentagon, CIA and other US intelligence and law-enforcement agencies became
increasingly “more aggressive” with takedown requests, the latest trove of Twitter files has revealed. The documents suggest the agencies were effectively pushing the platform to censor foreign-policy stories that ran against the Washington-approved narrative.
“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,” journalist Matt Taibbi wrote in the Christmas Eve edition of the Twitter Files, released with the blessing of the social media platform’s owner, Elon Musk.
Thousands of censorship requests flowed to Twitter from what were termed OGA” in the documents, or “Other Government Organizations,” through the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force. 
Twitter executives often struggled to validate government claims, but were under constant pressure to find evidence to blame any foreign actor, Russia in particular.
“Found no links to Russia,” an unnamed analyst said in one of the emails, later suggesting he could “brainstorm” to “find a stronger connection.” Former Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth admitted in another instance that he’d found “no real matches using the info.” IW

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