Musk-allied journalists dump more ‘Twitter Files’ detailing history with FBI
Christopher Hutton
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Elon Musk and his allies have released the latest drop in what they have termed the “Twitter Files” amid backlash over the billionaire’s ban of several journalists from the platform.
The latest Twitter Files drop deals with the company’s relationship with the FBI, according to former Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi. The new release detail the communications between federal agencies and the social platform over election misinformation and offer insight into how the two entities interacted and handled political content on the platform.
“Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” Taibbi claimed. “Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.”
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While several emails between Roth and the FBI are mundane, a “surprisingly high” number consists of requests for Twitter to take action on election misinformation. This included the FBI reporting accounts on the Left and Right for what were jokes in some cases.
The FBI also sent lists of accounts that “may warrant additional action due to the accounts being utilized to spread misinformation about the upcoming election.” Twitter took the list and later responded to the FBI, noting the specific actions involved.
The lists of tweets sent by the FBI often involved joke-level content and had low engagement, according to Taibbi.
The FBI was not the only one to flag content. The Department of Homeland Security and several state governments notified Twitter of content they thought was problematic. Some of this was done through the Partner Support Portal, an outlet constructed by the Center for Internet Security, a partner organization with the DHS.
“What most people think of as the ‘deep state’ is really a tangled collaboration of state agencies, private contractors, and (sometimes state-funded) NGOs. The lines become so blurred as to be meaningless,” Taibbi concluded.
Previous Twitter Files dealt with Twitter’s handling of Hunter Biden’s laptop, the blacklisting of certain conservative accounts, and the decision-making process relating to the suspension of former President Donald Trump.
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Taibbi’s latest drop arrives a day after Musk banned multiple journalists from Twitter. The journalists, who worked for the New York Times, CNN, and other outlets, were banned for posting links to @elonjet, an online tracker that reported Musk’s private jet activity. They were suspended just after Musk pushed through an update to Twitter’s rules that banned accounts “dedicated to sharing someone’s live location.”
Fellow Twitter Files writers, including former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss, slammed the decision. “The old regime at Twitter governed by its whims and biases, and it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem,” Weiss tweeted. “I oppose it in both cases. And I think those journalists who were reporting on a story of public importance should be reinstated.”