Twitter files 'supplemental' shows FBI 'grilled' execs over users spewing state propaganda

New Twitter head Elon Musk shared another part of the Twitter Files titled “Twitter Files Supplemental”. In the new revelation, journalist Matt Taibbi stresses on the FBI’s involvement in the social media networking platform. Taibbi claimed that the federal agency “pressurised” the Twitter executives, including former executive Yoel Roth to deal with the “state propaganda” prevalent in the social media networking site. In the latest part, the journalist highlighted how even the US Intelligence Committee (USIC) got involved in the saga.

 According to Taibbi, things started to escalate in the summer of 2020. In July 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan wrote to the then-head of Trust and Safety, Yoel Roth, warning him to be prepared for “written questions” from the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF). The task force is an inter-agency group that deals with cyber threats. According to the snippet of the message shared by Taibbi, Chan told Yoel that the USIC would like to get “clarifications” from Twitter. Taibbi then went on to share a “DHS (Department of Homeland Security)/ ODNI (Office of Director of National Intelligence)/FBI industry briefing”. The briefing dated July 20th comprised a list of questions that indicated the displeasure of the agencies with the social media networking site. In the questionnaire, Twitter was asked how they handle “official propaganda actors".

Taibbi highlighted that in the briefing it was stated, “you (Twitter) indicated you had not observed much recent activity from official propaganda actors on your platform”. The briefing also included a bibliography of public sources, one of the articles that were cited in the briefing was a Wall Street Journal article that highlighted the popularity of Russia’s state news agency RT on different social media platforms. Taibbi claimed that the public sources were attested to show Twitter that "they got it wrong”.

Roth expressed his discomfort with the interrogation by the agencies: Twitter Files  

In the Twitter thread, Taibbi asserted that Twitter Executive Yoel Roth circulate the questionnaire with other executives of the company and claimed that he was “perplexed” by the requests from the Bureau. In a chat snippet shared by Taibbi, Roth wrote, “I’m frankly perplexed by the requests here, which seem more like something we’d get from a congressional committee than the Bureau”. In the message, Roth also wrote that he was “not particularly comfortable with the Bureau (and by extension the IC) demanding written answers here”, and asked his colleague about how to navigate the current situation.

Taibbi shared another note written by Yoel to the internal staff of Twitter, in which he claimed that the premise of the questions asked in the July 20 briefing was “flawed”. The Twitter executive even went on to write in the note, “We’ve been clear that official state propaganda is definitely a thing on Twitter”. The former Trust and Safety head also urged one of the Twitter staff to get on the phone with “Elvis ASAP and try to straighten this out”. In the same Twitter thread, Taibbi asserted that on Friday, December 16, the FBI responded to Taibbi’s recent revelation and stated that the Federal Bureau “regularly engages with private sector entities”. Taibbi wrote that the reason behind such interactions according to the FBI is to “provide information” specific to identifying “foreign malign influence actors”. 

Finally, the journalist then went on to sum up the new chapter of Twitter Files, stating that throughout the whole ordeal, the only interactions between the two bodies that were visible were the numerous “requests for moderation” of certain accounts which had low followers and belonged to the “ordinary Americans”. The different chapters of Twitter files revealed the dark secrets of the much-loved social media platform. While the initial parts of the Twitter Files talked about the Hunter Biden laptop saga and Twitter’s ploy to deplatform former US President Donald Trump. Part 6 and the Twitter Files Supplemental dived deep into the involvement of Federal government agencies like the FBI in the workings of a social media platform.