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:
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28. “WE DON’T DO THIS” Even Twitter declined to honor Schiff’s request at the time. Sperry was later suspended, however.
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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:
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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.
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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.
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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.:
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33.One brief report, sent right after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine early last year, flagged major Russian outlets like Vedomosti and Gazeta.ru. Note the language about “state actors” fits Twitter’s internal guidance.
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34. Some reports were just a paragraph long and said things like: “The attached email accounts… were possibly used for “influence operations, social media collection, or social engineering.” Without further explanation, Twitter would be forwarded an excel doc:
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35. They were even warned about publicity surrounding a book by former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokhin, who alleged “corruption by the U.S. government” – specifically by Joe Biden.
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36. By the weeks before the election in 2020, Twitter was so confused by the various streams of incoming requests, staffers had to ask the FBI which was which:
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37. “I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR WORK LOAD”: Requests poured in from FBI offices all over the country, day after day, hour after hour: If Twitter didn’t act quickly, questions came: “Was action taken?” “Any movement?”
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38. Wrote senior attorney Stacia Cardille: “My in-box is really f--- up at this point.”
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39. It all led to the situation described by us two weeks ago, in which Twitter was paid $3,415,323, essentially for being an overwhelmed subcontractor.
Twitter wasn’t just paid. For the amount of work they did for government, they were underpaid.
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Twitter wasn’t just paid. For the amount of work they did for government, they were underpaid.
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The Twitter Files
THREAD: The Twitter Files Twitter and the FBI “Belly Button” Join: The Twitter Files
New #TwitterFiles thread includes Adam Schiff seeking a ban of journalist Paul Sperry, “OGA” warnings about former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokhin’s book, and how the FBI acted as “belly button for the USG”:
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Join: The Twitter Files
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