'Twitter Files' reveal Twitter's 'one-big-happy-family' relationship with the FBI

By 
 December 17, 2022

Elon Musk has just released more "Twitter Files," and the latest installment reveals just how close the FBI was with Twitter's previous management. 

As with previous installments of the "Twitter Files," Musk's latest release -- the sixth of its kind -- came through a journalist, namely Substack writer Matt Taibbi. The entire thread can be found here.

"Constant and pervasive"

Taibbi didn't beat around the bush with this release. In his third post of the thread, he states, "Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary."

In the very next post, Taibbi reveals that "between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth."

Although some of the emails are described by Taibbi as "mundane," Taibbi reports that "a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts."

Taibbi next reveals how the FBI created a "social media-focused task force," using as a pretext the 2016 Russian collusion hoax. That task force, known as FTIF, "swelled to 80 agents." And, the Department of Homeland Security, according to Taibbi, "partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content."

Taibbi goes on to report:

It’s no secret the government analyzes bulk data for all sorts of purposes, everything from tracking terror suspects to making economic forecasts. The #TwitterFiles show something new: agencies like the FBI and DHS regularly sending social media content to Twitter through multiple entry points, pre-flagged for moderation.

"One big happy family"

Taibbi proceeds to give examples, including a Sep. 16, 2022, letter from legal executive Stacia Cardilleto to former Deputy General Counsel and former top FBI lawyer Jim Baker on Sep. 16, 2022, outlining her "results from her 'soon to be weekly' meeting with DHS, DOJ, FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,"

Taibbi pointed to a passage in which "the Twitter exec writes she explicitly asked if there were 'impediments' to the sharing of classified information 'with industry.'" The answer, according to Taibbi was that the "FBI was adamant no impediments to sharing exist."

Taibbi writes:

This passage underscores the unique one-big-happy-family vibe between Twitter and the FBI. With what other firm would the FBI blithely agree to “no impediments” to classified information?

Taibbi goes on to provide several more examples.

He then concludes:

The takeaway: what most people think of as the “deep state” is really a tangled collaboration of state agencies, private contractors, and (sometimes state-funded) NGOs. The lines become so blurred as to be meaningless.

The FBI responds

The FBI, shortly after Taibbi's reporting, put out a statement trying to make its relationship with Twitter appear innocuous.

An FBI spokesperson told Fox News Digital:

The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.

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