"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
