#Twitter Files

[chawsl]

Trial of twitter files.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Twitter worked with the Pentagon to amplify propaganda about the United States military’s activities in the Middle East, allowing fake accounts to push pro-US narratives despite pledging to shut down covert state-run influence campaigns, according to an investigation based on Twitter’s internal files.

Twitter secretly created a special “whitelist” exempting accounts run by US Central Command (CENTCOM) from spam and abuse flags, granting them greater visibility on the platform, according to the investigation by Lee Fang, a reporter with The Intercept.

Twitter quietly introduced the feature in 2017 after US military officials asked the company to improve the visibility of 52 Arab language accounts used to “amplify certain messages”, according to the investigation, which was published on Twitter and in The Intercept.

CENTCOM’s “priority accounts” promoted information in support of US military narratives, including criticism of Iran, support for the US and Saudi Arabia-backed war in Yemen, and claims about the superior accuracy of US drone strikes, according to Fang.

CENTCOM subsequently concealed its ownership of the accounts, Fang said, in some cases using fake profile pictures and bios to give the impression they were run by civilians in the Middle East.

While Twitter has said it does not allow deceptive state-backed influence operations, the social media company was aware of CENTCOM’s covert activity and tolerated the presence of the accounts on the platform until at least May 2022, Fang said.

[beardedmrbean]

This is getting interesting, let's see where the rabbit leads.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Renee DiResta at The UnPopulist:

The Russians—and Iranians—did indeed play at being disgruntled Americans during that race. But in 2020, the accounts that most persistently and effectively worked to delegitimize the American presidential election belonged to the sitting president of the United States and his inner circle. For months, a cluster of campaign surrogates, ideologically-aligned influencers, and hyper-partisan media steadily beat the drum of “The Steal.” Therefore, EIP found itself in the unexpected position of assessing not voting “misinformation” so much as an expansive and deliberate propaganda campaign that managed to persuade its adherents that a free and fair election was in fact rigged—ultimately leading to a violent effort to prevent its certification. Since 2020, the same formidable network of political elites, influencers, and grassroots activists, has continued to systematically erode public trust in American elections, using its power not only to frame online discourse but to target those who stand in its way.

“Misinformation” is not the challenge we face in American politics. “Misinformation” implies that a fact is wrong, or a claim has been misinterpreted. The information challenge plaguing election 2020 was something else entirely. The stories that the EIP tracked—allegations of ballots being destroyed or being “found,” dead people and undocumented immigrants voting, live people using maiden names to cast more than one vote, Sharpie markers being handed out to deliberately invalidate ballots, CIA supercomputers or Dominion machines changing votes—originated and spread via highly active, authentic, participatory online crowds that believed, with religious zeal, that an election was being stolen right before their eyes. They believed that because that is what they were being told. The frame of “The Steal” came from the top. But the “evidence” to support it came from ordinary people who worked backwards, starting from a preexisting conclusion and then looking for substantiating evidence around them. This led them to view even their own neighbors and local election officials—including Republicans—with suspicion. The rumors of election fraud were driven by a sincere conviction at the grassroots, exacerbated by the speed at which sensational stories go viral on social media today—information flies before the facts can even be established. But their real lift came from boosts by explicitly ideological and cynical right-wing influencers.

These influencers very effectively, and repeatedly, turned online rumor into perceived reality, and suspicion into conspiracy. These weren't isolated trolls or tiny fringe websites. They included Donald Trump’s sons, Charlie Kirk, and Benny Johnson, for example, and they had millions of followers in aggregate. When they succeeded in making an allegation go viral, news outlets like Fox and OANN would pick it up, and millions of viewers outside of social media would see what “some people online” were saying.

This political machine—consisting of a nexus of top politicians, MAGA grassroots, social media influencers and traditional right-wing media—highlighted random allegations of irregularities to undermine trust in an election that it was afraid it would lose and which it did lose. A president who refused to accept defeat continued to amplify conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines, illegal ballots, and shadowy cabals for months (now years) after election day. His supporters believed him so completely that they were willing to resort to violence to put him back in the White House.

The Propaganda Machine Entrenches Itself

Nor did this process stop after the last election. If you saw the viral stories of pet-eating Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, or malevolent FEMA workers working to steal land and lithium following Hurricane Helene, you have seen this same process in action in recent weeks. A sensational allegation appears—“They’re eating the pets!”—hyper-partisan influencers boost it—“BIG IF TRUE!”—and prominent elected officials (like JD Vance) pick it up when it serves their political aims. Threats follow, targeting whatever hapless group or individual the angry people choose to scapegoat. Immigrants. FEMA workers. Weathermen. If the allegation is found to be false, the goalposts move: OK, the politician says, the specific claim in that particular rumor might have been wrong, but the concern expressed in the story is real. This is how, for example, a video of indeterminate animals on a grill, not in Springfield, Ohio, and not involving Haitians, nonetheless made the rounds on right-wing Twitter.

This process is repetitive, but we seem unable to interrupt it. Why? Because of another long-running delegitimization campaign by this same nexus: A deliberate effort to demonize fact-checks, content labeling, and platform responses to viral lies as a “censorship-industrial complex.” Social media platforms did act in response to the election rumor mill in 2020. They leveraged their procedures to take down inauthentic foreign state-sponsored trolls, and implemented election-specific policies to address premature claims of victory, false claims of fraud, or posts that deliberately misled by telling people to vote on the wrong day. (In 2022, some sites added policies to prohibit threats to election officials that had been proliferating at an alarming rate.)

[...] But MAGA politicians and their allies spun these facts quite differently. In 2020, most of the viral and misleading election-related claims were in support of Donald Trump; consequently, a significant portion of the platforms' enforcement actions involved right-wing speakers. For right-wing politicians and influencers, this was irrefutable proof of anti-conservative bias—not of a problem of falsehoods and lies on their side. They leveraged the narrative to fuel a growing right-wing backlash against Big Tech.

[...] Perhaps the most visible among them today is Elon Musk, CEO of X (formerly Twitter) and an influential figure with over 200 million followers. Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform two years ago gave right-wing political elites a useful ally deeply sympathetic to the notion of an anti-conservative bias in social media. During the 2022 election, Musk briefly continued to support then-Twitter’s commitment to tackling foreign interference: when the EIP worked to expose Russian, Iranian, and Chinese influence operations in conjunction with Twitter’s integrity teams, Musk amplified and praised the work. However, as Musk increasingly engaged with election-denying influencers, some, like former Trump administration staffer Mike Benz, began to press their advantage, even calling on Musk to fire specific moderation team “censors” by name.

Musk obliged. In order to eliminate the “censorship regime” of Old Twitter, he also released the “Twitter Files,” a cherry-picked selection of internal communications between platform staff and outsiders in government, academia, or civil society. Largely ignored by mainstream media, the Files caused a huge sensation within right-wing and heterodox Twitter. The effort sought to provide evidence to justify the belief that Twitter and its collaborators in government and academia had conspired to suppress conservatives in 2020—and to delegitimize any kind of content moderation. In reality, the files largely showed Twitter employees doing their best to make hard decisions, regularly opting not to take action on accounts that government or other outsiders suggested they look at, and in fact actively attempting to avoid moderating prominent conservatives. (One can debate to what extent the state should speak to private platforms, but the small number of flagged posts that were taken down suggests that the platforms weren’t fearing reprisals, and X’s own lawyers stated that the materials “[did] not plausibly suggest” evidence of censorship in legal filings following their release.)

In November of 2022, the House flipped to Republican control. That shift operationalized the effort to delegitimize and silence researchers like myself who’d studied the Big Lie and engaged with Big Tech. Leading that charge was Congressman Jim Jordan, himself an election denier, who ushered in a bold new version of McCarthyism by launching investigations into platforms, people, and institutions that had pushed back against the narrative of election fraud. Subpoenas went out—including to me—demanding information and interviews in response to the spurious allegations of the Twitter Files, imposing a significant monetary and time cost. The effort wasn’t about finding the truth so much as punishing those who had spoken it. And as was the case with McCarthy, no documents that were turned over, and nothing that was said, could ever actually exonerate the accused. Researchers, civil society organizations, and election integrity groups were baselessly reframed as the real villains, accused of orchestrating a vast conspiracy to suppress speech and rig elections. In other words, the MAGA propaganda machine levitated baseless allegations of censorship it itself had made to impose real censorship. And it has succeeded.

Some institutions and researchers backed away from election work, afraid of threats and continued government attention. Stanford University exited the space; the Election Integrity Partnership is not operating in the 2024 election. Other civil society and academic institutions are still tracking election rumors, but no longer speaking directly with state or local election officials or tech platforms. Governments backed away from engaging with tech companies even about suspected foreign interference. Platforms themselves have become vague about the extent to which they will moderate or fact-check rumors and conspiracy theories. The political backlash they faced for a few high-profile mistakes—like the ill-considered temporary suppression of coverage of Hunter Biden’s Laptop—has put them back on their heels.

Networks adept at spreading rumors and conspiracy theories require a networked response—which is why this concerted targeting campaign set out to dismantle collaboration, ensuring fewer obstacles to their messaging in the 2024 election. Meanwhile, policy and product changes at X since 2022 have also significantly aided the cause. Musk himself, once an advocate for platform neutrality, has become a vocal Trump surrogate. His personal political identification is not a problem; business leaders are entitled to their beliefs and speech. However, he is simultaneously X’s largest account and the governor of its policies. He has an unparalleled ability to capture attention due to how his platform recommends content, as well as a predilection for amplifying conspiracy theories that reinforce his political beliefs. He recently re-aired debunked claims about voting machines that cost Fox News a $700 million settlement.

The MAGA propaganda machine has weaponized phony claims about “censorship” to intimidate those who call out their obvious lies.

[theculturedmarxist]

The Tumblr Files

Tumblr has a habit of disappearing blogs that it seems to find objectionable. Alas, if only they were full of reactionary content they'd probably have been allowed to stay, but instead they're Leftists of various stripes, which makes them uncomfortable for the owners of Tumblr at best and dangerous at worst.

Regardless of what you think of Musk's purchase of Twitter, one good thing that came out of it was the release of the Twitter Files. Therein we learned of just how closely social media companies like Facebook and Twitter have integrated with the US government and its spying agencies.

Does the FBI have a direct line to TumblrHQ? I can't say for certain. I haven't seen any evidence of it yet, but Tumblr is a massive platform with a lot of reach. Its size alone makes it a prime target for surveillance if only because were the community left to its own devices it might start to develop its own ideas about how the world worked contrary to the bourgeois narrative, or what the US government currently calls "misinformation."

Some things to consider:

First, in the wake of the Democrats' 2016 presidential loss, the Professional-Managerial Class which make up its primary constituencies freaked out. The development of Russiagate was the response. This wasn't just about Trump winning the presidency though. The source of bourgeois terror was that the internet was an unregulated source of information, and people were starting to get the "wrong" ideas, as evidenced by Bernie Sanders immense popularity at the time, and Trump's victory.

Second, Russiagate triggered a concerted spy agency response to root out basically nonexistent "Russian influence" on social media "promoting misinformation." Pressure was put onto SM companies to "do something about Russian election meddling." Twitter's internal research found that there was basically nothing of the kind. This was the wrong answer, so Twitter was compelled by propaganda outlets and the threat of expensive legislation to "do something," and that something was to basically turn over its moderation process to US spy agencies.

30.“REPORTERS NOW KNOW THIS IS A MODEL THAT WORKS” This cycle – threatened legislation, wedded to scare headlines pushed by congressional/intel sources, followed by Twitter caving to moderation asks – would later be formalized in partnerships with federal law enforcement. 31.Twitter soon settled on its future posture. In public, it removed content “at our sole discretion.” Privately, they would “off-board” anything “identified by the U.S.. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.” 32.Twitter let the “USIC” into its moderation process. It would not leave. Wrote Crowell, in an email to the company’s leaders: “We will not be reverting to the status quo.”

Why is this relevant to Tumblr? Because it has a large, influential community, which alone would necessitate its surveillance if not control, but especially because Tumblr is hemorrhaging money and is failing to gain ground against its competitors.

TechCrunch reported that CEO Matt Mullenweg spilled the beans during the Q&A, which was cohosted by COO Zandy Ring and attended by a meager 800 users, despite being plastered across every Tumblr account’s dashboard. According to Mullenweg, the platform is spending $30 million more than it’s making as it tries to desperately cling to relevance in its fight against Instagram and TikTok. Moreover, COO Ring explained that the platform is not seeing much of an increase in its userbase.

“People have this impression that we have massive growth right now, and we really don’t,” Ring said during the Q&A.

None of this necessarily means that it's Langley that's getting Leftist users booted off the platform. It could merely be personal biases on the part of the staff, against transsexuals, against pro-Palestinian activists. It does seem arbitrary and capricious enough. If the goal was, say, combating antisemitism by banning pro-Palestinian users, would there be so many fascists and outright Nazis on tumblr? Why does it seem like the majority of those that get banned just happen to be on the side which opposes imperialist Western narratives?

In any case, this markedly underscores that if the Western Left wants any hope of surviving on the web, it can't rely on corporate resources to do so.

[constantly-deactivated]

The Twitter Files 🤔

[bighermie]

Dictators don’t like the peasants communicating.

[thisisabernieblog]

This may be one of Lee Camp's best episodes, as it covers the #TwitterFiles and the censorship by the US government, gangs in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department and the Washington Post actually covering Israeli war crimes! With the addition of Mexican President AMLO calling the US an oligarchy.

@lordandgodoftheobvious @brendanicus @apas-95 @petalsbleedingbeak @cavern-creature @missedthestartgun @whatevergreen @dicknouget @definitely-ellie @reinforced-fear-be-damned @they-will-not-contain-us

[tilos-tagebuch]

Facts:

1. FBI took Hunter Biden's laptop in December 2019 and knew he wasn't from hackers

2. The FBI spent the year 2020 telling Twitter that a "hack-and-leak" with Hunter would occur in October 2020

3. The FBI spied on Giuliani when he gave the NY Post the laptop.

[wakewithgiggli]

Click through to read the thread.

Edit: The link doesnt always show up, so here it is: https://twitter.com/AvidHalaby/status/1602127460677844993

[yeahiwasintheshit]

Mehdi Hasan makes Elon musk’s bitch boy Matt taibbi look like the right wing lackey fool he is. Mehdi completely destroys this idiot, in a way christopher hitchens would be proud lol

[commonsensecommentary]

“An organization with ties to the U.S. national security apparatus falsely portrayed a bunch of mostly right-leaning, Trump-supporting Twitter content as nefarious and Russian in origin. The mainstream media eagerly peddled this incorrect narrative.”

Not a surprise!!!

[noturtlesoup17]

Whoa! Personal direct access! Someone tell Taibbi!

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

What many of us in the alt-media world suspected is now being proven true with the release of the #TwitterFiles. In 2018 Facebook and Twitter colluded to kill our accounts. Now we know why.

[constantly-deactivated]

TwitterGate ... 1st Amendment 🤔

[macmanx]

If you’ll give me a moment to be candid, this is all just incredibly embarrassing for Musk, if he’s capable of feeling shame. (For the record, I’d guess yes.) The man made free speech his brand, saying that he wants to make Twitter a “trusted digital town square, where a wide range of views are tolerated, provided people don’t break the law or spam.” And then he cracks down on another company because it added a feature that’s a bit like Twitter?

To be clear, this is somewhat consistent behavior from Musk. The free speech promises were always puffery, and that’s been clear ever since that hot minute in December when Twitter went nuclear on links to other social media sites like Mastodon, Instagram, and Facebook.