The FBI paid Twitter millions of dollars to cover the costs of processing the agency's requests. "I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!" wrote someone with Twitter's Safety, Content, & Law Enforcement (SCALE) team in a February 2021 email, according to internal messages reported by journalist Michael Shellenberger today.
"In 2019 SCALE instituted a reimbursement program for our legal process response from the FBI," explained the email, whose author is redacted. "Prior to the start of the program, Twitter chose not to collect under this statutory right of reimbursement for the time spent processing requests from the FBI."
The internal email was reported as part of an ongoing project known as the Twitter Files, in which new Twitter CEO Elon Musk gave a small group of journalists access to a trove of internal communications and documents on the condition that stories derived from this material be reported on Twitter first. Reason's Robby Soave has written about previous installments of the Twitter Files here, here, here, and here.
Shellenberger's new installment centers on Twitter's decision to temporarily block a New York Post story about Hunter Biden just before the 2020 election. This was also the subject of the first Twitter Files thread, from Matt Taibbi.
Among other things, the new thread details how Trump-era FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warnings about potential foreign meddling in the 2020 election drove excessive caution from Twitter officials when the Hunter Biden story first came out.
"Given the SEVERE risks here and lessons of 2016, we're erring on the side of including a warning and preventing this content from being amplified," Twitter's former head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth wrote in an internal Google Doc discussion about the Post story.
Emails and documents explaining Twitter deliberations here are interesting—though hardly the sort of smoking guns many on the right are making them out to be. Taken all together, they showcase a company trying hard to balance competing concerns, including free speech, electoral integrity, national security, freedom of the press, public relations, and lawmaker demands, sometimes acquiescing to and sometimes pushing back against government requests.
21. Despite Twitter's pushback, the FBI repeatedly requests information from Twitter that Twitter has already made clear it will not share outside of normal legal channels. pic.twitter.com/WyI03iZ0WF
— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) December 19, 2022
Twitter's internal communications do not suggest a company itching to tilt the 2020 election or to benefit Joe Biden but one still reeling from accusations of aiding Russian trolls during the 2016 election and facing immense pressure from government forces not to let it happen again. Twitter ultimately made the wrong call in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story on the grounds that it may stem from hacked materials, but it was also an understandable mistake (and one quickly corrected) given the totality of the circumstances.
If there are real villains here, it's FBI and DHS agents excessively vigilant about potential foreign propaganda in 2020 and overzealous about countering election-related misinformation. But given everything that happened on this front in 2016—the (relatively pathetic) attempts at a Russian influence campaign and the subsequent years of hysteria about it—it's not terribly surprising that authorities were on high alert. And warning social media companies to be on high alert, too, is actually pretty far down on the list of damning things these agencies do.
There's been ample insinuation that these agencies were politically motivated. But all of this was happening at a time when President Donald Trump was in power and his people were running DHS and the FBI. Rather than agencies intent on swaying the 2020 election for Biden, their actions seem like run-of-the-mill paranoia and attempts at control.
This brings us back to the FBI. In the last installment of the Twitter Files, Matt Taibbi reported on some of the agency's content moderation requests, many of which were related to potential election misinformation. Twitter looked into the flagged tweets and accounts, sometimes complying with the FBI and sometimes not.
"It's not that this information was totally unsuspected," as my colleague Robby Soave wrote about Taibbi's last thread. "It was already abundantly clear that government officials were in regular communication with social media companies and flagging content for moderation. But it's useful to see the scale of that interaction as well as some specific examples. The extent to which Big Tech and Big Government are working in tandem to crack down on dissent, contrarianism, and even humor is frankly disturbing."
The same could be said about Shellenberger's latest installment, with perhaps the exception of the FBI payout.
The money seems to be related to FBI requests for Twitter data.*
Federal law grants government entities the right to access, with a court order, certain stored communications from "electronic communication service" providers. These are known as 2703(d) requests. To get a court order, the government must show that there are "reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation."
Federal law also states that "a governmental entity obtaining the contents of communications, records, or other information" allowed under 2703 and related statutes "shall pay to the person or entity assembling or providing such information a fee for reimbursement for such costs as are reasonably necessary and which have been directly incurred in searching for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing such information."
Twitter's "Guidelines for law enforcement" state under a section titled "Cost reimbursement" that "Twitter may seek reimbursement for costs associated with information produced pursuant to legal process and as permitted by law (e.g., under 18 U.S.C. §2706)."
Shellenberger's latest Twitter Files do not contain any more information than the one email about the reimbursement program, bringing up many more questions than it answers. Processing what kind of requests? Which other companies are being reimbursed? To the tune of how much? For how long? It doesn't say.
Meanwhile, Musk spun this revelation as "Government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public."
But the reimbursement money does not seem to be related to FBI content moderation requests.
There are reasons to be concerned about 2703(d) requests and the way the government obtains social media data. But these are different concerns than those that Musk brings up.
The FBI paid Twitter millions of dollars to cover the costs of processing the agency's requests. "I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!"
The great lie about Russian bot / ‘misinformation’ was a brilliant boogeyman created by the DNC / FBI to cover for almost any crime they had on the planning table.
As a Republican-leaning voter
If you’re inclined to think Trump a singular threat that must be resisted — and you can point to the January 6 attacks as proof of your theory — then a major social media company banning him is more justifiable. But if you think the liberals at the social media company are themselves a major threat to speech, then the power they wielded in banning Trump may disquiet you.
It wasn’t a group of rogue FBI agents. It was a huge department, focusing on suppressing speech unfavorable to democrats, the WH Covid narrative, and the pro-war narrative. It was their primary domestic priority.
I wasn’t convinced of this until I read the primary documents.
Quote:So then, do you believe that everyone who applied to be an FBI agent was initially a democrat, or became a democrat after getting into the FBI? Because that is what this would require.It wasn’t a group of rogue FBI agents. It was a huge department, focusing on suppressing speech unfavorable to democrats, the WH Covid narrative, and the pro-war narrative. It was their primary domestic priority.
Quote:No, that’s a silly question. When you’re a trained Secret Service agent, do you have to be a voting Democrat to serve a Democrat? You’re hired to do a job. When you’re told to surveill a person, you do it. The overriding domestic mission of the FBI became getting rid of Trump.
Quote:There were only a few primary documents on that feed. Most of them didn't say enough to come to any conclusion. I can say that the author was writing to a specific audience, and that there was a lot of information left out.I wasn’t convinced of this until I read the primary documents.
Quote:Wonder if you read all Twitter Files.
For example, in one part he suggests that the FBI was in constant contact with twitter, and provides Stats of 50 contacts in a 9 month period....but no real examples of what those contacts asked. Probably most of them were asking for the account holders details (if you are at all familiar with tracing 'who' is making a post).
Quote:Other files contain more information.
Another was how he tried to write up the FBI's activity as nefarious while downplaying the FBI's concerns that Russia would again try to influence an election.
Quote:There was never any proof that Russia did any such thing and proof that FBI lions kept harassing Yoel Roth about Russian interference when Roth continually said there was none—in the context of those conversations—goes a long way in proving it never happened.
- The son of a presidential candidate 'accidentally' leaves his laptop behind AND doesn't have it password protected?
Quote:You don’t think laptop technicians have the passwords needed to help them do their job—or can get into accounts??
If I was in the FBI, I'd be suspicious too. I don't know what powers they have, but natural justice (if you are familiar with it) would dictate that a government agency doesn't release damaging information against a candidate in the lead up to an election without verifying its authenticity. That would take time, if at all possible.
Quote:Suppressing true information about people trying to become president of the United States is not a decision for the FBI in a free democratic society.
As for Twitter debating whether or not his laptop files were hacked (and therefore whether or not to supress the post under their policy of not posting hacked information) - for that you have to look up the definition of hacking. Without going to too much effort, I found: "a hacker can be charged with a crime if they lack consent or any lawful authorization to enter another's computer system."
Quote:If you read the Twitter Files, you’ll see the receipt proving the FBI picked up the laptop from the repair shop. Reading the pertinent material will answer a lot of your questions.
I’ve said many times where it is.
No, that’s a silly question. When you’re a trained Secret Service agent, do you have to be a voting Democrat to serve a Democrat? You’re hired to do a job. When you’re told to surveill a person, you do it. The overriding domestic mission of the FBI became getting rid of Trump.
Wonder if you read all Twitter Files.
There was never any proof that Russia did any such thing and proof that FBI lions kept harassing Yoel Roth about Russian interference when Roth continually said there was none—in the context of those conversations—goes a long way in proving it never happened.
You don’t think laptop technicians have the passwords needed to help them do their job—or can get into accounts??
Suppressing true information about people trying to become president of the United States is not a decision for the FBI in a free democratic society.
If you read the Twitter Files, you’ll see the receipt proving the FBI picked up the laptop from the repair shop.
People who want to know the truth can find it easily now.
People who are afraid of the truth or unable to acknowledge that they’ve been fooled continue to hide from it.
Period.
Walter, can we consult Pussy Riot as a respected primary source now on all historical foreign policy questions, or just this one?
Garland Nixon is a veteran progressive radio and television talk show host. He also currently serves on the ACLU's National Board.
