s on Twitter Files (9) // Scott Johnson
Matt Taibbi presented part 9 of the Twitter Files on Christmas Eve. This is a significant contribution to the series. Although I believe readers can access the thread starting with the tweet below (although I can only pull up the first thirty tweets at this point),
1.THREAD: The Twitter FilesTWITTER and “OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES”
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 24, 2022
The thread was reversed when I read it last night. It ran from 51 (at top) to 2 (at bottom). It’s not clear to me how it works. It has 51 parts, but I don’t know how to verify that (as I found it last night and as Taibbi’s Substack site linked below). They are running through 56 this morning. I can only tell you that I am doing my best and encourage you to look at it with your own eyes. It’s worth your time.
The Twitter format was a difficult way to handle this thread. You can take it in hier using the Thread Reader App or hier as posted on Substack’s TK News site by Taibbi.
Taibbi refers to his part 9 thread as “The spies that loved Twitter.” His post summarizes the information in the subhead “What have we learned so far.” My usual notes are removed: “The bottom line?” Federal law enforcement claimed primacy over all media distribution, something that is normally only found in tinpot regimes.
The CIA is known as the “Other Government Organization (or Other Government Agency)” that assists Twitter in regulating its platform. This is a significant role for the CIA. It was still only one of the agencies that “helped” Twitter.
Here are a few tweets I noticed in the 56-part thread. They start with Taibbi’s response to the FBI drivel.
3. They must consider us unambitious if our “sole purpose” is to discredit FBI. A whole host of government agencies have been discredit in the #TwitterFiles. Why limit yourself to one?
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 24, 2022
5. The operation is much larger than the 80 members of the Foreign Influence Task Force, which facilitates requests from a wide range of smaller actors, from media to state governments to local cops.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 24, 2022
6.Twitter had so many contacts with so many agencies, that executives lost track. Is it the FBI or the DOD? Is it the weekly conference call or the monthly meeting. It was dizzying. pic.twitter.com/C8d8jntnC0
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 24, 2022
17. These included Facebook and Microsoft as well as Verizon, Reddit and Reddit. Regular meetings were also held by industry players without the government.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 24, 2022
27. “They have some people in the Baltimore field office, and at Headquarters that are just doing keyword search for violations. Cardille stated that this is probably the tenth request he has dealt with in the past five days. pic.twitter.com/asTlMhs2if
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 24, 2022
The conclusion of Taibbi’s thread (the conclusion I think) is especially important.
56. The CIA has not yet commented on the nature of its relationship with tech companies such as Twitter. Twitter had no influence on anything I wrote or did. The searches were done by third parties so I may not have seen all of the results.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 24, 2022
To make things even more complicated, Taibbi has added notes and comments to his Twitter account.
It was so obvious the FBI was assigning personnel specifically to look for Twitter term-of-service violations — an effort funded by taxes, instead of fighting crime — that two of the company’s top lawyers wondered what the hell was going on: https://t.co/6fVet54J2z pic.twitter.com/Wyjr7ltFTQ
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 25, 2022
Here’s another.
Here, a top Twitter staffer acknowledged that the government’s “aggressive” demands for validation of foreign influence theories could not be resisted. “Our window on independence is closing,” he said. https://t.co/9X6nzKtdFG
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 24, 2022
