The US Federal establishment aggressively demanded Twitter executives to take down accounts that appeared to be 'anti-Ukraine', citing unproved charges that the Russian agencies were behind those accounts, according to journalist Matt Taibbi.
Taibbi, who released the explosive account of misdeeds in Twitter before Elon Musk took the social media company private, said the Federal authorities such as the CIA, FBI and other intelligence wings, repeatedly called for the 'digital execution' of accounts without giving adequate justification.
Massive Batches
The agencies sometimes sent "massive batches of over 1,000 accounts" said the journalist. The agencies would usually say that Russian agents were directing accounts that highlighted 'predominantly anti-Ukraine narratives'. The takedown requests did not explain adequately about the Russian connection, leading to a muzzling to reportage on the alleged human rights abuses committed by Ukrainians, Taibbi said.
The intelligence assessment by the top US agencies also said that Twitter accounts that talked about Ukrainian 'neo-Nazis' were part of a Kremlin-controlled propaganda campaign. Taibbi also refers to an unnamed former CIA-turned-Twitter executive who went down on record stating that the government partners were getting increasingly aggressive in their demands to remove accounts critical of Ukraine.
Twitter Execs Struggled
"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," the Substack journalist wrote in his latest Twitter Files revelation.
Twitter executives 'struggled' to validate the Russian nexus claims raised by the US government agencies, Taibbi said. He cites an unnamed analyst saying in one of the emails that he 'Found no links to Russia' and even suggested that there should be a 'brainstorm' session to find a stronger connection.
In early December, Twitter boss Elon Musk released explosive information on how top Twitter executives hurriedly decided that the Hunter Biden laptop story by the New York Post was probably a Russian misinformation officer. The expose by Musk also showed that an influential group of former intelligence officials including CIA Director John Brennan and ex-National Security Council Director James Clapper also colluded in the efforts to suppress the damning Post story Hunter and Joe Biden.
The zealots in Twitter and the intelligence community apparently concluded without evidence that the article may have included "hacked materials," wrote Taibbi.
Twitter Files
The 'Twitter Files' info dump threw light into how the microblogging site's top leadership suppressed free speech through partisan sensoring of content. The most glaring example was the they way the Hunter Biden scandal was suppressed at the behest of the Washington Ddemocratic establishment in the run-up of the 2020 US presidential election. Twitter also acted arbitrarily by removing former President Donald Trump's account permanently from the platform to appease its liberal masters.
"Many people wonder if Internet platforms receive direction from intelligence agencies about moderation of foreign policy news stories. It appears Twitter did, in some cases by way of the FITF/FBI," Taibi wrote.
