20.Eventually the FBI argued, first to Facebook, for a compromise solution: other USG agencies could participate in the “industry” calls, but the FBI and DHS would act as sole “conduits.”
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍7🔥4
21.Roth reached out to Chan with concerns about letting the “press-happy” GEC in, expressing hope they could keep the “circle of trust small.”
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍9
22."STATE... NSA, and CIA" Chan reassured him it would be a “one-way” channel, and “State/GEC, NSA, and CIA have expressed interest in being allowed on in listen mode only.”
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍9🔥2
23."BELLY BUTTON" “We can give you everything we’re seeing from the FBI and USIC agencies,” Chan explained, but the DHS agency CISA “will know what’s going on in each state.” He went on to ask if industry could “rely on the FBI to be the belly button of the USG."
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍8🤬4
24.They eventually settled on an industry call via Signal. In an impressive display of operational security, Chan circulated private numbers of each company’s chief moderation officer in a Word Doc marked “Signal Phone Numbers,” subject-lined, “List of Numbers.”
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍4🔥3
25.Twitter was taking requests from every conceivable government body, beginning with the Senate Intel Committee (SSCI), which seemed to need reassurance Twitter was taking FBI direction. Execs rushed to tell “Team SSCI” they zapped five accounts on an FBI tip:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍7🤬5
26.Requests arrived and were escalated from all over: from Treasury, the NSA, virtually every state, the HHS, from the FBI and DHS, and more:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍7🤬4
27. They also received an astonishing variety of requests from officials asking for individuals they didn’t like to be banned. Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍8😱5🤬5
28. “WE DON’T DO THIS” Even Twitter declined to honor Schiff’s request at the time. Sperry was later suspended, however.
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍8🔥3
29.Twitter honored almost everyone else’s requests, even those from GEC – including a decision to ban accounts like RebelProtests and BricsMedia because GEC identified them as “GRU-controlled” and linked “to the Russian government,” respectively:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍7😱4
30. The GEC requests were what a former CIA staffer working at Twitter was referring to, when he said, “Our window on that is closing,” meaning they days when Twitter could say no to serious requests were over.
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍8🔥3
31.Remember the 2017 “internal guidance” in which Twitter decided to remove any user “identified by the U.S. intelligence community” as a state-sponsored entity committing cyber operations? By 2020 such identifications came in bulk.
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍8🔥4
32.“USIC" requests often simply began “We assess” and then provided lists (sometimes, in separate excel docs) they believed were connected to Russia’s Internet Research Agency and committing cyber ops, from Africa to South America to the U.S.:
Join: The Twitter Files
Join: The Twitter Files
👍7🔥2