FBI lashes out at ‘conspiracy theorists’ over ‘Twitter Files’ criticism
Christopher Hutton
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The FBI slammed the Elon Musk-allied journalists who have released internal documents relating to censorship decisions at Twitter, calling them “conspiracy theorists” for alleging that the agency had encouraged the platform to censor news about Hunter Biden.
The FBI published a statement on Wednesday responding to Monday’s release of what Musk and his allies are calling the Twitter Files, which elaborated on the company’s communications with the FBI. The journalist who released the files, Michael Shellenberger, said they showed the agency secretly influencing Twitter to remove the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020.
NEW TWITTER FILES DETAIL FBI’S RELATIONSHIP WITH COMPANY LEADERSHIP
“The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries,” the law enforcement agency said on Wednesday in a statement provided to Fox News. “As evidenced in this correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to protect themselves and their customers. The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public.”
“It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency,” the agency added.
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The FBI said in the past that it had not forced Twitter to remove any content. “Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has warned them,” the agency said in a Dec. 16 statement.
The Twitter Files, which Musk authorized, comprise internal documents from the platform under the previous ownership detailing Twitter’s “blacklisting” practices, its content moderation decisions regarding former President Donald Trump, and its communications with federal agencies. The information was provided after Musk gave access to journalists he selected, including former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss, former Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi, and the Intercept’s Lee Fang.