Journalist Matt Taibbi’s 40-post thread highlights how the US intelligence community was pressuring the social media site to suspend accounts and restrict reporting.
In the latest round of revelations under the Twitter Files, the social media platform’s new owner, Elon Musk, claimed US government agencies had told Twitter to suspend more than 250,000 accounts. Musk was commenting on the Twitter feed of journalist Matt Taibbi, who is one of the few journalists selected by Musk to have handed over internal Twitter documents.
“The US government agency has demanded the suspension of 250,000 accounts, including Canadian journalists and officials!” Musk wrote.
The US government agency demanded the suspension of 250,000 accounts, including Canadian journalists and officials! https://t.co/kcEMMCzF7d
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2023
The requests are said to have come from the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Global Engagement Center, which compiled a list of accounts that “displayed inorganic behavior” and followed “two or more” Chinese diplomatic accounts. Many of these accounts were created recently and were considered suspicious. Among the accounts were Canadian officials as well as a CNN account.
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Taibbi shared an image of an email to Twitter employees Nick Pickles, who was head of global government affairs, and Yoel Roth, who was global head of trust and safety, on the media platform. social. However, the post showed the list being shared with Twitter for their “situational awareness and no action requested”.
Taibbi’s 40-post long thread shows how the US intelligence community was pressuring the social media site to suspend accounts and restrict reporting. The growing relationship between the US intelligence community and Twitter under the Trump administration came to a head during the COVID-19 crisis.
Taibbi’s thread showed how Twitter was responding to suspension requests from agencies such as the GEC, DHS, FBI, NSA, CIA and more. Taibbi even shared an email discussing the request from Democratic Rep. and House Intelligence Committee Chief Adam Schiff’s office to ban reporter Paul Sperry “linked to alleged harassment by QAnon conspirators.”
Musk, the eccentric billionaire who bought Twitter for a $44 billion deal, also recently promised to share the “Fauci Files” later this week.
Meanwhile, Musk’s main source of wealth, major EV Tesla, has seen its value plummet. Shares of the company fell more than 12% in a single day.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
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