Elon Musk’s Twitter Files series has revealed details about the collusion between the former Twitter regime and US government agencies. These groups worked closely to distort the discourse leading to the 2020 Presidential elections using a variety of tools at their disposal.
Yesterday Musk released the eighth installment of the series.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1605298927104053248
In this edition, journalist Lee Fang revealed how Twitter
secretly waged the Pentagon’s covert online PsyOp campaign which is contrary to the public claims made by the former Twitter regime.
Let’s dig deeper.
Fang revealed that the former Twitter regime "claimed for
years that they make concerted efforts to detect" and "thwart
gov-backed platform manipulation." Such claims were made even during a
testimony before
Congress
However, these turned out to be mere empty pledges.
Behind closed doors, the former Twitter regime gave approval & special protection to Pentagon accounts that used covert identities and spread propaganda.
Twitter did not suspend many of these accounts for around 2 years or more despite knowledge of their activities. Some remain active.
Fang cited an example of an email from US Central Command (CENTCOM)
from 2017 that listed 52 Arab-language accounts it “used to amplify certain
messages."
Government officials asked for priority service for six accounts, blue
tick verification for one & “whitelist” abilities for the others.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605294744833343488
Twitter willingly and instantly complied with these requests on that
very day.
Fang revealed the existence of a “whitelist” tag that provided
verification status to the accounts without having a blue tick verification.
This causes accounts to be exempt from spam/abuse flags. It also increases visibility
and tweets from these accounts become part of trends via hashtags.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605295073138298904
The primary function of these CENTCOM accounts was to influence U.S. military priorities in the
Middle East.
These “priority accounts” promoted information in support of US
military narratives, including anti-Iran narratives, support for the US and
Saudi Arabia-backed war in Yemen, and claims about the accuracy of US drone
strikes.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605295735553118245
These accounts initially disclosed their U.S. government ties, but later this information was suppressed to give the
impression they were run by regular people based in the Middle East.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605296340715687939
These accounts also tweeted in
Russian & Arabic on US military issues in Syria/ISIS & many did not
disclose Pentagon ties.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605299620393156609
Feng revealed that these covert U.S. military accounts
were allowed to function until May 2022 or later.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605299917781553152
Fang wrote that one Twitter official felt ‘deceived"
by all these covert activities.
However, emails from throughout 2020 revealed that many other Twitter executives willingly colluded with US officials to conceal information about links
these accounts had with US government agencies.
Among these were Twitter's former legal
executive Stacia Cardille and former deputy general counsel who was once FBI
general counsel Jim Baker.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605298448655605760
Matters improved in August when a Stanford
Internet Observatory report exposed these covert U.S. military networks on social
media that were spreading propaganda against U.S. foreign adversaries.
The Stanford report revealed that in order to
prevent being traced these US Government accounts used deepfake (composite) computer-generated
images as display photos.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605301390682759170
Fang revealed that Twitter actively assisted covert
US official accounts from 2017 and knew
from 2020 that these accounts were meant to influence the discourse but the
inaction prevailed for a long time.
When Twitter finally acted and removed
the propaganda accounts, the
media lauded them instead of exposing their collusion with US government
agencies and delay in taking remedial action.
This is because Twitter has also cultivated ties
with various media organizations.
When the WaPo reported on the scandal, Twitter
officials congratulated each other because the story didn’t mention them but
instead focused on the Pentagon.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605303738968612865
Feng said that the conduct with the U.S.
military’s covert network stands in stark contrast with how Twitter has talked about identifying and taking down covert accounts tied to state-backed
influence operations, including Thailand, Russia, Venezuela, and others since
2016.
Fang concluded the thread with a link to his piece
for The Intercept which offers a deeper dive into these revelations, it is worth a read.
These revelations once again offer proof that Twitter was influencing rather than reflecting public opinion.
What makes this worse is the US government was pulling the strings and that these operations weren’t only restricted to US shores but foreign nations.
It is vital to not conflate these revelations with remedial
actions.
Also, an expose such as this is pointless until it reaches regular people. Alas, that won't happen because the media will filter vital information and make it look like Musk is leading an online insurrection against the US government.
How the news media covered the Twitter files?
The WaPo called it an exercise
in hypocrisy. Politico claims that the
revelations were
falling flat. The Atlantic called it a missed
opportunity. CNN concluded that content
moderation is messy.
Apart from conservative media, few have covered it
without spin. Al
Jazeera covered the eighth edition because of the Middle Eastern connection to the revelations.
Even the mighty BBC ignored disclosures of specific threads.
What can be said with certitude is that Musk has become a target
The media is already carrying stories of Musk’s ‘inhumane’
layoffs, Musk exploiting
his employees, and Musk living at Twitter's
headquarters.
The media reported
on former Twitter official Yoel Roth being
forced to leave home
due to threats following the release of Twitter
Files and escalating
attacks from Musk.
The Twitter suspension of a handful of liberal journalists caused global
condemnation.
The goal is to provide agencies a basis to target Musk and get
their revenge, it isn’t a question of if, but when Musk will face retaliation.
Back to the revelations.
Democracy can function only when the government is honest with
its citizens.
Since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, the government has fed
citizens with one disinformation campaign after another.
There was the Russian collusion hoax,
the Ukraine
call hoax, and now the insurrection hoax.
To each of these hoaxes were sub-hoaxes such as the golden
shower hoax and the domestic
terror hoax. There were hoaxes about bigotry.
It wasn’t only hoaxes, factual information such as the Hunter
Biden Laptop from hell story was discredited by the US Government, the news
media, and social media.
The media actively supported the government propaganda and we now
know that social media firms also colluded with nefarious government forces to deceive
the citizen.
We thus have a government out of control, trampling over citizens
like an enormous dinosaur.
Instead of being watchdogs, government agencies, the news media, and social media have become willing lapdogs who wag their tales and wait for
their next command in hope that a biscuit will be tossed in their direction.
Citizens have no choice but to presume that every word
emanating from the government, the news media, and social media is a lie until proven true after meticulous verification.
This usually occurs under totalitarian regimes, but not in one of
the world’s largest democracies.
Also appears on American Thinker
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