These platforms remove content at the “express direction” of US federal agencies, Twitter’s CEO said.
All social media platforms are working with the US government to censor content, Twitter CEO Elon Musk said on Tuesday. Documents released by Musk after his purchase of Twitter showed the platform colluded with the FBI, CIA, Pentagon and other government agencies to suppress information about the election, Ukraine and Covid-19. 19.
“*Each* social media company is engaged in heavy-handed censorship with significant involvement and sometimes explicit guidance from the government,” Musk tweeted adding that “Google, for example, often causes links to disappear.”
Most people don’t understand the importance of the point Matt makes:
*Every* social media company is involved in heavy censorship with significant involvement and sometimes explicit guidance from the government.
Musk referred to internal Twitter communications posted by journalist Matt Taibbi, which suggested the platform’s executives held regular meetings with members of the FBI and CIA, during which the agencies gave them lists of “hundreds of problematic accounts” to be suspended until the 2020 election.
In addition to Twitter, the government was in contact “with virtually every major technology company,” Taibbi claims. “These included Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit and even Pinterest.” CIA agents “almost always” attended those companies’ meetings with the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, Taibbi said, explains that although this task force was convened to address alleged interference by foreign states in elections, so “Mountains of Requests for Domestic Moderation.”
Read more
Twitter File details Covid censorship campaign
A lawsuit filed earlier this year by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana alleges that officials from as many as 12 state agencies met weekly with representatives from Twitter, Facebook and other Big Tech companies in 2020 to decide which stories and users to censor with topics ranging from alleged election interference to Covid-19.
A self-proclaimed “freedom of speech absolute” Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October. He has since published batches of documents highlighting the platform’s previously opaque censorship policies. Released by several independent journalists, these files showed how Twitter removed information damaging to Joe Biden’s campaign, agreed with the FBI to remove content the agency wanted hidden, helped campaigns to influence the US military online, and censored “Anti-Ukrainian storieson behalf of several US intelligence agencies.
The FBI said last week that correspondence between its agents and Twitter employees “Show nothing but examples of our tradition [of] long-standing and ongoing commitments from the federal government and the private sector.
The White House has declined to respond to allegations that the FBI ordered Twitter to censor information damaging to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
