{"id":1082741,"date":"2023-01-04T18:10:18","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T23:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/taibbi-summaries-of-all-twitter-files-to-date\/1082741\/"},"modified":"2023-01-04T18:10:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T23:10:18","slug":"taibbi-summaries-of-all-twitter-files-to-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/taibbi-summaries-of-all-twitter-files-to-date\/1082741\/","title":{"rendered":"Taibbi: Summaries Of All ‘Twitter Files’ To Date"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Taibbi: Summaries Of All ‘Twitter Files’ To Date<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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

It\u2019s January 4th, 2023, which means Twitter Files stories have been coming out for over a month. Because these are weedsy tales, and may be hard to follow if you haven\u2019t from the beginning, I\u2019ve written up capsule summaries of each of the threads by all of the Twitter Files reporters, and added links to the threads and accounts of each. At the end, in response to some readers (especially foreign ones) who\u2019ve found some of the alphabet-soup government agency names confusing, I\u2019ve included a brief glossary of terms to help as well.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In order, the Twitter Files threads:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Twitter Files Part 1<\/a>: December 2, 2022, by <\/span>@mtaibbi<\/a><\/p>\n

    TWITTER AND THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Recounting the internal drama at Twitter surrounding the decision to block access to a <\/span>New York Post <\/em>expos\u00e9 on Hunter Biden in October, 2020. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Key revelations<\/strong>: Twitter blocked the story on the basis of its \u201chacked materials\u201d policy, but executives internally knew the decision was problematic. \u201cCan we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?\u201d is how comms official Brandon Borrman put it. Also: when a Twitter contractor polls members of Congress about the decision, they hear Democratic members want more moderation, not less, and \u201cthe First Amendment isn\u2019t absolute.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    1a. <\/span>Twitter Files Supplemental<\/a>, December 6, 2022, by <\/span>@mtaibbi<\/a><\/p>\n

    THE \u201cEXITING\u201d OF TWITTER DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL JIM BAKER<\/strong><\/p>\n

    A second round of Twitter Files releases was delayed, as new addition Bari Weiss discovers former FBI General Counsel and Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker was reviewing the first batches of Twitter Files documents, whose delivery to reporters had slowed.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Twitter Files Part 2<\/a>, by <\/span>@BariWeiss<\/a>, December 8, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

    TWITTER\u2019S SECRET BLACKLISTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Bari Weiss gives a long-awaited answer to the question, \u201cWas Twitter shadow-banning people?\u201d It did, only the company calls it \u201cvisibility filtering.\u201d Twitter also had a separate, higher council called SIP-PES that decided cases for high-visibility, controversial accounts.<\/p>\n

    Key revelations<\/strong>: Twitter had a huge toolbox for controlling the visibility of any user, including a \u201cSearch Blacklist\u201d (for Dan Bongino), a \u201cTrends Blacklist\u201d for Stanford\u2019s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and a \u201cDo Not Amplify\u201d setting for conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Weiss quotes a Twitter employee: \u201cThink about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It\u2019s a very powerful tool.\u201d With help from <\/span>@abigailshrier<\/a>, <\/span>@shellenbergermd<\/a>, <\/span>@nelliebowles<\/a>, and <\/span>@isaacgrafstein<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Twitter Files, Part 3<\/a>, by <\/span>@mtaibbi<\/a>, December 9, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

    THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP, October 2020 – January 6th, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

    First in a three-part series looking at how Twitter came to the decision to suspend Donald Trump. The idea behind the series is to show how all of Twitter\u2019s \u201cvisibility filtering\u201d tools were on display and deployed after January 6th, 2021. <\/span>Key Revelations<\/strong>: Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth not only met regularly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, but with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Also, Twitter was aggressively applying \u201cvisibility filtering\u201d tools to Trump well before the election. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    Twitter Files Part 4<\/a>, by <\/span>@ShellenbergerMD<\/a>, December 10, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

    THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP, January 7th, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

    This thread by Michael Shellenberger looks at the key day after the J6 riots and before Trump would ultimately be banned from Twitter on January 8th, showing how Twitter internally reconfigured its rules to make a Trump ban fit their policies.<\/p>\n

    Key revelations<\/strong>: at least one Twitter employee worried about a \u201cslippery slope\u201d in which \u201can online platform CEO with a global presence\u2026 can gatekeep speech for the entire world,\u201d only to be shot down. Also, chief censor Roth argues for a ban on congressman Matt Gaetz even though it \u201cdoesn\u2019t quite fit anywhere (duh),\u201d and Twitter changed its \u201cpublic interest policy\u201d to clear a path for Trump\u2019s removal. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  5. \n

    Twitter Files Part 5<\/a>, by <\/span>@BariWeiss<\/a>, December 11, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

    THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP, January 8th, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

    As angry as many inside Twitter were with Donald Trump after the January 6th Capitol riots, staffers struggled to suspend his account, saying things like, \u201cI think we\u2019d have a hard time saying this is incitement.\u201d As documented by Weiss, they found a way to pull the trigger anyway.<\/p>\n

    Key revelations<\/strong>: there were dissenters in the company (\u201cMaybe because I am from China,\u201d said one employee, \u201cI deeply understand how censorship can destroy the public conversation\u201d), but are overruled by senior executives like Vijaya Gadde and Roth, who noted many on Twitter\u2019s staff were citing the \u201cBanality of Evil,\u201d and comparing those who favored sticking to a strict legalistic interpretation of Twitter\u2019s rules \u2014 i.e. keep Trump, who had \u201cno violation\u201d \u2014 to \u201cNazis following orders.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  6. \n

    Twitter Files Part 6<\/a>, by <\/span>@mtaibbi<\/a>, December 16, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

    TWITTER, THE FBI SUBSIDIARY<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

    Twitter\u2019s contact with the FBI was \u201cconstant and pervasive,\u201d as FBI personnel, mainly in the San Francisco field office, regularly sent lists of \u201creports\u201d to Twitter, often about Americans with low follower counts making joke tweets. Tweeters on both the left and the right were affected.<\/p>\n

    Key revelations<\/strong>: A senior Twitter executive reports, \u201cFBI was adamant no impediments to sharing\u201d classified information exist. Twitter also agreed to \u201cbounce\u201d content on the recommendations of a wide array of governmental and quasi-governmental actors, from the FBI to the Homeland Security agency CISA to Stanford\u2019s Election Integrity Project to state governments. The company one day received so many moderation requests from the FBI, an executive congratulated staffers at the end for completing the \u201cmonumental undertaking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  7. \n

    Twitter Files Part 7<\/a>, by <\/span>@ShellenbergerMD<\/a>, December 19, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

    THE FBI AND HUNTER BIDEN\u2019S LAPTOP<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The Twitter Files story increases its focus on the company\u2019s relationship to federal law enforcement and intelligence, and shows intense communication between the FBI and Twitter just before the release of the <\/span>Post\u2019s <\/em>Hunter Biden story. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Key Revelations<\/strong>: San Francisco agent Elvis Chan \u201csends 10 documents to Twitter\u2019s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter,\u201d the evening before the release of the <\/span>Post <\/em>story. Also, Baker in an email explains Twitter was compensated for \u201cprocessing requests\u201d by the FBI, saying \u201cI am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    <\/p>\n

    The ten teleporter documents referred to in Mike Shellenberger\u2019s FBI thread. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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

      \n
    1. \n

      Twitter Files Part 8<\/a>, by <\/span>@lhfang<\/a>, December 20, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

      HOW TWITTER QUIETLY AIDED THE PENTAGON\u2019S COVERT ONLINE PSYOP CAMPAIGN<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

      Lee Fang takes a fascinating detour, looking at how Twitter for years approved and supported Pentagon-backed covert operations. Noting the company explicitly testified to Congress that it didn\u2019t allow such behavior, the platform nonetheless was a clear partner in state-backed programs involving fake accounts.<\/p>\n

      Key revelations<\/strong>: after the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) sent over a list of 52 Arab-language accounts \u201cwe use to amplify certain messages,\u201d Twitter agreed to \u201cwhitelist\u201d them. Ultimately the program would be outed <\/span>in the <\/a>Washington Post<\/a><\/em> in 2022 \u2014 two years after Twitter and other platforms stopped assisting \u2014 but contrary to what came out in those reports, Twitter knew about and\/or assisted in these programs for at least three years, from 2017-2020. <\/span><\/p>\n

      Lee wrote a companion piece for the <\/span>Intercept <\/em>here<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    2. \n

      Twitter Files Part 9<\/a>, by <\/span>@mtaibbi<\/a>, December 24th, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

      TWITTER AND \u201cOTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES\u201d<\/p>\n

      The Christmas Eve thread (I should have waited a few days to publish!) further details how the channels of communication between the federal government and Twitter operated, and reveals that Twitter directly or indirectly received lists of flagged content from \u201cOther Government Agencies,\u201d i.e. the CIA.<\/p>\n

      Key revelations<\/strong>: CIA officials attended at least one conference with Twitter in the summer of 2020, and companies like Twitter and Facebook received \u201cOGA briefings,\u201d at their regular \u201cindustry\u201d meetings held in conjunction with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The FBI and the \u201cForeign Influence Task Force\u201d met regularly \u201cnot just with Twitter, but with Yahoo!, Twitch, Cloudfare, LinkedIn, even Wikimedia.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    3. \n

      Twitter Files Part 10<\/a>, by <\/span>@DavidZweig<\/a>, December 28, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

      HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE<\/strong><\/p>\n

      David Zweig drills down into how Twitter throttled down information about COVID that was true but perhaps inconvenient for public officials, \u201cdiscrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Key Revelations<\/strong>: Zweig found memos from Twitter personnel who\u2019d liaised with Biden administration officials who were \u201cvery angry\u201d that Twitter had not deplatformed more accounts. White House officials for instance wanted attention on reporter Alex Berenson. Zweig also found \u201ccountless\u201d instances of Twitter banning or labeling \u201cmisleading\u201d accounts that were true or merely controversial. A Rhode Island physician named Andrew Bostom, for instance, was suspended for, among other things, referring to the results of a peer-reviewed study on mRNA vaccines. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    4. \n

      and<\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

    5. \n

      Twitter Files <\/span>Parts 11<\/a> <\/span>and 12<\/a>, by @mtaibbi, January 3, 2023<\/span><\/p>\n

      HOW TWITTER LET THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY IN<\/strong><\/p>\n

      and<\/p>\n

      TWITTER AND THE FBI \u201cBELLY BUTTON\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

      These two threads focus respectively on the second half of 2017, and a period stretching roughly from summer of 2020 through the present. The first describes how Twitter fell under pressure from Congress and the media to produce \u201cmaterial\u201d showing a conspiracy of Russian accounts on their platform, and the second shows how Twitter tried to resist fulfilling moderation requests for the State Department, but ultimately agreed to let State and other agencies send requests through the FBI, which agent Chan calls \u201cthe belly button of the USG.\u201d <\/span>Revelations<\/strong>: at the close of 2017, Twitter makes a key internal decision. Outwardly, the company would claim independence and promise that content would only be removed at \u201cour sole discretion.\u201d The internal guidance says, in writing, that Twitter will remove accounts \u201cidentified by the U.S. intelligence community\u201d as \u201cidentified by the U.S.. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

      The second thread shows how Twitter took in requests from everyone \u2014 Treasury, HHS, NSA, FBI, DHS, etc. \u2014 and also received personal requests from politicians like Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, who <\/span>asked to have journalist Paul Sperry suspended<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      GLOSSARY OF \u201cTWITTER FILES\u201d TERMS<\/h4>\n
        \n
      1. \n

        Government Agencies and NGOs<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

        CISA:<\/strong> The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)<\/span><\/p>\n

        CENTCOM:<\/strong> Central Command of the Armed Forces<\/span><\/p>\n

        ODNI:<\/strong> Office of the Director of National Intelligence<\/span><\/p>\n

        FITF:<\/strong> Foreign Influence Task Force, a cyber-regulatory agency comprised of members of the FBI, DHS, and ODNI<\/span><\/p>\n

        \u201cOGA\u201d:<\/strong> Other Government Agency, colloquially \u2014 CIA<\/span><\/p>\n

        GEC:<\/strong> Global Engagement Center, an analytical division of the U.S. State Department <\/span><\/p>\n

        USIC:<\/strong> United States intelligence community <\/span><\/p>\n

        HSIN:<\/strong> Homeland Security Information Network, a portal through which states and other official bodies can send \u201cflagged\u201d accounts<\/span><\/p>\n

        EIP:<\/strong> Election Integrity Project, a cyber-laboratory based at Stanford University that sends many reports to Twitter<\/span><\/p>\n

        DFR:<\/strong> Digital Forensic Research lab, an outlet that performs a similar function to the EIP, only is funded by the Atlantic Council <\/span><\/p>\n

        IRA:<\/strong> Internet Research Agency, the infamous Russian \u201ctroll farm\u201d headed by \u201cPutin\u2019s chef,\u201d Yevgheny Prigozhin<\/span><\/p>\n

        \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

      2. \n

        Twitter or Industry-specific terms<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

        PII:<\/strong> Can have two meanings. \u201cPersonally identifiable information\u201d is self-explanatory, while a \u201cPublic Interest Interstitial\u201d is a warning placed over a tweet, so that it cannot be seen. Twitter personnel even use \u201cinterstitial\u201d as a verb, as in, \u201cCan we interstitial that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

        JIRA: <\/strong>Twitter\u2019s internal ticketing system, through which complaints rise and are decided<\/span><\/p>\n

        PV2: <\/strong>The system used at Twitter to view the profile of any user, to check easily if it has flags like \u201cTrends Blacklist\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

        SIP-PES <\/strong>Site Integrity Policy \u2014 Policy Escalation Support. SIP-PES is like Twitter\u2019s version of a moderation Supreme Court, dealing with the most high-profile, controversial rulings<\/span><\/p>\n

        SI: <\/strong>Site integrity. Key term that you\u2019ll see repeately in Twitter email traffic, especially with \u201cescalations,\u201d i.e. tweets or content that have been reported for moderation review<\/span><\/p>\n

        CHA: <\/strong>Coordinated Harmful Activity<\/span><\/p>\n

        SRT: <\/strong>Strategic Response Team<\/span><\/p>\n

        GET: <\/strong>Global Escalation Team<\/span><\/p>\n

        VF: <\/strong>Visibility Filtering <\/span><\/p>\n

        GUANO: <\/strong>Tool in Twitter\u2019s internal system that keeps a chronological record of all actions taken on an account<\/span><\/p>\n

        VIT: <\/strong>Very Important Tweeter. Really. <\/span><\/p>\n

        GoV: <\/strong>Glorificaiton of Violence<\/span><\/p>\n

        BOT: <\/strong>In the moderation content, an individualized heuristic attached to an account that moderates certain behavior automatically<\/span><\/p>\n

        BME: <\/strong>Bulk Media Exploitation <\/span><\/p>\n

        EP Abuse: <\/strong>Episodic abuse<\/span><\/p>\n

        PCF: <\/strong>Parity, commentary and fan accounts. \u201cPCF\u201d sometimes appears as a reason an account has escaped an automated moderation process, under a limited exception<\/span><\/p>\n

        FLC:<\/strong> Forced Login Challenge. Also called a \u201cphone challenge,\u201d it\u2019s a way Twitter attempts to verify if an account is real or automated. \u201cPhone challenges\u201d are seen repeatedly in discussions about verification of suspected \u201cRussia-linked\u201d accounts<\/span><\/p>\n

        IO<\/strong>: Information Operations, as in <\/span>The GEC\u2019s mandate for offensive IO to promote American interests.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        This page will be kept open and updated as needed. If you have questions about terms, please send them to taibbi@substack.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
        \nWed, 01\/04\/2023 – 22:25<\/span><\/p>\n

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

        Taibbi: Summaries Of All ‘Twitter Files’ To Date Authored by Matt Taibbi via TK News, It\u2019s January 4th, 2023, which means Twitter Files stories have…<\/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-1082741","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\/1082741","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=1082741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}