Twitter not only was the FBI’s willing handmaiden in censorship, but also helped the U.S. Defense Department manage its propaganda and psychological warfare operations.
Twitter did so, journalist Lee Fang explained in Part 8 of the Twitter Files, despite its long-standing claim that it stopped governments from using the platform to manipulate the public.
Along with the revelation in Part 7 of the files about FBI payments to Twitter for censorship, the latest raises the question of just how tightly the military and federal law enforcement controlled the platform and its operations.
52 Propaganda Accounts
The answer to that question is cloudy. But it’s clear that Twitter became, at least at times, a de facto arm of the federal government.
“Twitter has claimed for years that they make concerted efforts to detect & thwart gov-backed platform manipulation,” Fang reported. But that wasn’t the case, and “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.
Indeed, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) ran a major propaganda operation on the platform.
An official “sent Twitter a list of 52 Arab language accounts ‘we use to amplify certain messages’” and wanted “priority service for six accounts, verification for one & ‘whitelist’ abilities for the others,” Fang continued:
The same day CENTCOM sent the list, Twitter officials used a tool to grant a special “whitelist” tag that essentially provides verification status to the accounts w/o the blue check, meaning they are exempt from spam/abuse flags, more visible/likely to trend on hashtags.
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.
CENTCOM then shifted strategies & deleted disclosures of ties to the Twitter accounts. The bios of the accounts changed to seemingly organic profiles. One bio read: “Euphrates pulse.” Another used an apparent deep fake profile pic & claimed to be a source of Iraqi opinion.
One Twitter official told Fang he felt deceived by the secret accounts, but not everyone at the platform was in the dark about them. “High-level” executives knew about the “DoD’s vast network of fake accounts & covert propaganda and did not suspend the accounts.”
One of those executives was Twitter’s general counsel Jim Baker, the former FBI general counsel whom Elon Musk fired for helping suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story.
In July 2020, Baker lamented that the Pentagon “used ‘poor tradecraft’ in setting up its network, and were seeking strategies for not exposing the accounts that are “linked to each other or to DoD or the USG,” Fang reported:
Stacia Cardille, another Twitter attorney, replied that the Pentagon … may want to retroactively classify its social media activities “to obfuscate their activity in this space, and that this may represent an overclassification to avoid embarrassment.”
In several other 2020 emails, high-level Twitter executives/lawyers discussed the covert network and even recirculated the 2017 list from CENTCOM and shared another list of 157 undisclosed Pentagon accounts, again mostly focused on Middle East military issues.…
Many of these secretive U.S. military propaganda accounts, despite detection by Twitter as late as 2020 (but potentially earlier) continued tweeting through this year, some not suspended until May 2022 or later.
The Pentagon propagandists worked overtime to spread disinformation about foreign countries. They “relentlessly pushed narratives” about Russia and China, and “accused Iran of ‘threatening Iraq’s water security and flooding the country with crystal meth,’ and of harvesting the organs of Afghan refugees,” Fang wrote.
Though Twitter supposedly removed accounts that pushed “pro-Western policy positions,” the truth about its handling of such accounts is “much more murky”:
Twitter actively assisted CENTCOM’s network going back to 2017 and as late as 2020 knew these accounts were covert/designed to deceive to manipulate the discourse, a violation of Twitter’s policies & promises. They waited years to suspend.
Twitter’s comms team was closely in touch with reporters, working to minimize Twitter’s role. When the WashPost reported on the scandal, Twitter officials congratulated each other because the story didn’t mention any Twitter employees & focused largely on the Pentagon.
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.
Government-run
This eighth installment of the Twitter Files, released by Elon Musk to Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger, suggests that federal officials at least partially controlled the platform.
Twitter employees eagerly complied with wishes and demands from government officials.
As The New American reported about Twitter Files Part 7, the FBI even paid Twitter to censor Americans, and former bureau employees packed the platform’s payroll.
An FBI agent provided Twitter officials with top secret clearances, a possible national security issue given that the platform was controlled by anti-American leftists such as Yoel Roth. Roth is the hate-Trump weirdo and homosexual who played a major role in suspending President Trump and suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Roth tweeted that “actual Nazis” were in the White House and wrote his “doctoral dissertation” on “gay” hook-up websites.
For more on the Twitter Files:
FBI Paid Twitter $3.4M for Censorship Operation, Bureau Alumni Packed Payroll
Twitter a “Subsidiary” of FBI, Censored on Bureau’s Orders
Twitter Banned Trump, but Not Leaders Who Advocated Violence, Genocide
Key Twitter Exec Behind Trump Ban Was GOP, Trump-hater Roth
Twitter Files Detail Trump Suspension, Regular Meetings With FBI, DHS
Twitter Blacklist Operation Exposed in Second Dump of “Twitter Files”
Musk Fires Former FBI Attorney Who Vetted Twitter Files, Helped Suppress Hunter Biden Laptop Story
Musk: Twitter Might Have Interfered in Brazil’s Election, Too
Musk Releases “Twitter Files” That Detail Effort to Block Hunter Biden Laptop Story
