Matt Taibbi Drops ‘Twitter Files, Part Six,’ Details How Platform Was Like FBI’s ‘Subsidiary'

AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File

Just in time for our weekend enjoyment, independent journalist Matt Taibbi has released part six of the “Twitter Files” in an epic dropping of the receipts, many of which are sure to raise even more free speech concerns considering the sheer volume of documented collusion between high-level officials at local and federal intelligence agencies and Twitter over roughly the last three years alone in suppressing the voices of private citizens for WrongSpeak.

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In the third tweet from Taibbi’s thread, he noted how “Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.”

Next, we learned that “Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.”

Though he said some of the communications were “mundane,” Taibbi pointed out that others were “requests for information into Twitter users related to active investigations.”

Interestingly and perhaps more disturbingly, “requests for action” were frequently in regards to “low-follower” Twitter accounts that had limited reach on grounds that they were spreading “election misinformation.” In the next tweet, Taibbi talked about the post-2016 election FBI “social media-focused task force,” which Taibbi says “swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds”:

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Though DHS involvement was discussed in an earlier release of the Twitter Files, Taibbi talked about the “reach” of the FBI along with DHS into Twitter as well:

Though Taibbi correctly observed that it is fairly common knowledge that government collects information at all levels on “everything from tracking terror suspects to making economic forecasts,” he indicated that Twitter Files were in another ballpark altogether:

Here are some of the accounts federal officials targeted:

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Just nuts. Read more of Taibbi’s full thread either here or here for more examples of the types of accounts that were “flagged” by the FBI, and which in turn were also aggressively monitored by Twitter for alleged policy violations related to “election misinformation.”

Related: CNN Lets the Mask Slip in Huffy Segment on Elon Musk’s Release of ‘Twitter Files’

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