{"id":1080147,"date":"2023-01-03T12:10:14","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T17:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/twitter-files-why-twitter-let-the-intelligence-community-in\/1080147\/"},"modified":"2023-01-03T12:10:14","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T17:10:14","slug":"twitter-files-why-twitter-let-the-intelligence-community-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/twitter-files-why-twitter-let-the-intelligence-community-in\/1080147\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter Files: Why Twitter Let The Intelligence Community In"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Twitter Files: Why Twitter Let The Intelligence Community In<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News<\/a> (emphasis ours),<\/em><\/p>\n

From the Twitter Files, a story about media, that also sketches the origins of Twitter\u2019s surrender to the intelligence community:<\/p>\n

\n

1.THREAD: The Twitter Files
\nHow Twitter Let the Intelligence Community In<\/p>\n

\u2014 Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Twitter through the end of August, 2017 was on nobody\u2019s radar as a key actor in the Trump-Russia \u201cforeign influence\u201d scandal.<\/p>\n

By the second week in October \u2014 six weeks later \u2014 the company was being raked over the coals in the press as \u201cone of Russia\u2019s most potent weapons in its efforts to promote Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton,\u201d with Clinton herself adding:<\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to the fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyber-warfare.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What happened in those six weeks? Answering that question is a key to understanding the content moderation phenomenon. In this period, crucial in the company\u2019s history, a pattern was established. Threats from Congress came first, then a rush of bad headlines (inspired by leaks from congressional committees, and finally a series of moderation demands coming from the outside. Once the company acceded, the cycle repeated.<\/p>\n

The documents lay out the scheme. You can see how the Russian cyber-threat was essentially conjured into being, with political and media pressure serving as the engine inflating something Twitter believed was negligible and uncoordinated to massive dimensions.<\/p>\n

\u201cKEEP PRODUCING MATERIAL\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The timeline started when a fellow tech titan, Facebook, decided in late August 2017 to suspend 300 accounts with \u201csuspected Russian origin.\u201d The move appeared to irritate some Twitter insiders, as Facebook not only shared data with Twitter, but with the Senate Intelligence Committee, where ranking Democrat and Virginia Senator Mark Warner was on an all-out hunt for Russian meddlers.<\/p>\n

Twitter\u2019s leaders, anxious to avoid being \u201cdragged into another pitch for an industry wide solution,\u201d as one senior lawyer put it, appeared peeved that Facebook pulled them into the congressional muck. Yet they mistakenly believed the company could still side-step the political\/PR minefield, and \u201ckeep the focus on FB,\u201d mainly because they were all sure there hadn\u2019t been a big Russia problem on their network:<\/p>\n

\u201cNo larger patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not see a big correlation.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFB may take action on hundreds of accounts, and we may take action on ~25.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

18.The failure of the \u201cRussia task force\u201d to produce \u201cmaterial\u201d worsened the company\u2019s PR crisis.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the autumn progressed, however, Twitter\u2019s leaders began to realize the Russia thing might hit them no matter what.<\/p>\n

An early hint came in a September 8, 2017 piece in the <\/span>New York Times<\/em> called \u201c<\/span>The Fake Americans Russia Created to Influence the Election<\/a>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

This was of many stories that helped the <\/span>Times <\/em>win a Pulitzer Prize<\/a> for exploring \u201cRussian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign.\u201d Author Scott Shane explained that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter had been \u201cturned into engines of deception and propaganda.\u201d On Twitter specifically, the <\/span>Times <\/em>in conjunction with the cybersecurity group FireEye claimed, \u201cRussian fingerprints are on hundreds or thousands of fake accounts that regularly posted anti-Clinton messages,\u201d adding:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The fakery may have added only modestly to the din of genuine American voices in the pre-election melee, but it helped fuel a fire of anger and suspicion in a polarized country.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Twitter employees seemed puzzled by the FireEye piece, but didn\u2019t really worry until the appearance of stories hinting they were being uncooperative with Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi guys,\u201d wrote Public Policy VP Colin Crowell on September 23, 2017. \u201cJust passing along for awareness the writeup here from the WashPost today on potential legislation (or new FEC regulations) that <\/span>may affect our political advertising.<\/em>\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

5.\u201cTwitter is not the focus of inquiry into Russian election meddling right now – the spotlight is on FB,\u201d wrote Public Policy VP Colin Crowellpic.twitter.com\/2nzk8pLoCZ<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023<\/a>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article, \u201c<\/span>Facebook\u2019s openness on Russia questioned by congressional investigators<\/a>,\u201d mostly focused on Facebook, but like the <\/span>Times <\/em>piece included a few shots across Twitter\u2019s bow. It noted congressional \u201cinvestigators also are pushing for fuller answers from Google and Twitter, both of which may have been targets of Russian propaganda efforts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Later that month, Twitter staff, led by Crowell, met with Warner and his staff, shared what the company believed to be true, that they had no coordinated Russian interference issue on their platform.<\/p>\n

Not only did Warner not like this answer, he gave Twitter a fierce media paper-training, holding an instant press conference to voice his displeasure.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir response was, frankly, inadequate on almost every level,\u201d Warner told reporters. <\/span>Reuters added<\/a> that Warner said the Twitter briefing was \u201cmostly derivative of a presentation earlier this month given by Facebook,\u201d and \u201clacked thoroughness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Warner presser hit Twitter like a bomb. Gallows humor filled inboxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell these are good headlines\u2026\u201d joked a communications officer, passing along an email with the subject line, INADEQUATE ON EVERY LEVEL.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201c#Irony,\u201d mused Crowell, upon receipt (the day after the presser) of an e-circular from Warner\u2019s re-election campaign, asking for \u201c$5 or whatever you can spare,\u201d to \u201chelp Mark hit his quarterly fundraising goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a circular to other senior executives about his meeting with Warner, Crowell explained that Warner \u201chas political incentive to keep this issue at top of the news, maintain pressure on us and rest of industry to keep producing material for them.\u201d He added that although Warner\u2019s public posture was contentious, the private atmosphere was more of a \u201ccollaborative spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said congressional Democrats were \u201ctaking cues from Hillary Clinton,\u201d who that same week <\/span>told a Stanford audience<\/a> she was the victim of a \u201cvirtual Watergate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Crowell explained further that the company was being \u201churt\u201d by outside academics and researchers, who \u201ctap our API to pull together flawed reports painting the bot\/Russian troll problem as a significant presence on Twitter.\u201d He added:<\/p>\n

\n

It was evident in the room with staff investigators that these researchers had already briefed the committees and asserted Twitter is a major problem. These studies are also cited in recent media stories.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There are mentions throughout Twitter\u2019s email record that fall of studies by a range of researchers \u201ctapping\u201d the data Twitter and Facebook shared with Congress. The company took special note of former FBI Counterintelligence agent Clint Watts, whose work on the Foreign Policy Research Institute\u2019s \u201cHamilton 68\u201d project gave reporters a public \u201cdashboard\u201d for tracking a \u201cRussian Disinformation on Twitter.<\/span>\u201d <\/strong>Its web page featured a crude illustration of Vladimir Putin tossing bunches of red Twitter symbols into the ether: <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Part of the reason Twitter hired Burson-Marsteller was because the company boasted a stable of former government officials \u2014 including many from the Obama and Clinton administrations \u2014 who had relationships with the Democratic Party\u2019s loudest Russia hawks. Burson even sent over a \u201cthird parties\u201d outreach document, detailing which members of their team had contacts with Strobe Talbott, Madeleine Albright, Richard Clarke, and former ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, among others.<\/p>\n

TK News subscribers<\/a> can read the rest here…<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 01\/03\/2023 – 16:40<\/span><\/p>\n

From:Zerohedge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter Files: Why Twitter Let The Intelligence Community In Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News (emphasis ours), From the Twitter Files, a story about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1080147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1080147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1080147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1080147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1080147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}