Twitter Files: FBI acts as ‘doorman’ to vast program of social media surveillance, censorship

By Merve Berker

ANKARA (AA) – The FBI acts “as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government,” according to the latest Twitter Files release.

Mentioning that FBI did not refute the previous claims about how it benefited from the social media platform, which had basically asserted that the FBI moderates the Twitter, journalist Matt Taibbi said on Twitter that the bureau shared a statement on Wednesday, saying: “The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public…”

“It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency,” the FBI added.

Taibbi said: “The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government – from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA.”

“The operation is far bigger than the reported 80 members of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), which also facilitates requests from a wide array of smaller actors - from local cops to media to state governments,” he said in a series of tweets.

“Twitter had so much contact with so many agencies that executives lost track,” the journalist said.

“A chief end result was that thousands of official “reports” flowed to Twitter from all over, through the FITF and the FBI’s San Francisco field office,” Taibbi added.

Since taking over Twitter, Musk, 51, has sacked roughly half of the company’s 8,000 workers, reinstated previously banned accounts on the platform, and also announced an “amnesty” for suspended accounts, prompting concerns about a rise in disinformation and hate speech.

On Thursday, Musk suspended a number of journalists’ Twitter accounts, only to restore them Saturday based on online polling. Critics say the suspensions were unfair and capricious and the quick reversals a sign of Musk’s erratic management.

Critics have also downplayed the significance of the Twitter Files as overblown.