The Twitter Files – How Twitter Lets the Intelligence Community Know

Matt Taibbi, a journalist, released the eleventh installment “The Twitter Files” Tuesday afternoon that explored the social media platform’s embrace of the U.S. Intelligence Community in recent years.

“In August 2017, when Facebook decided to suspend 300 accounts with ‘suspected Russian origin,’ Twitter wasn’t worried,” Taibbi started. “Its leaders were sure they didn’t have a Russia problem.”

Taibbi revealed that Twitter executives had used internal communications from the company. “not see a big correlation” Oder “larger patterns” That they were concerned about.

“Twitter was so sure they had no Russia problem, execs agreed the best PR strategy was to say nothing on record, and quietly hurl reporters at Facebook,” Taibbi continued.

Colin Crowell, Public Policy VP, wrote this email back in 2017 “Twitter is not the focus of inquiry into Russian election meddling right now – the spotlight is on FB because FB has better targeting ability than we have for campaign-related advertising; and, because the Trump campaign spent massively on FB during the election compared to what they spent w/us.”

5.“Twitter is not the focus of inquiry into Russian election meddling right now – the spotlight is on FB,” Colin Crowell was the Public Policy VP. pic.twitter.com/2nzk8pLoCZ

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

Taibbi mentioned that Sen. Mark Warner, D-VA, then-Ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee was “furious” over Twitter’s report to the U.S. Senate that showed that the company only suspended “22 possible Russian accounts, and 179 others with ‘possible links’ to those accounts, amid a larger set of roughly 2700 suspects manually examined.”

7.Receiving these meager results, a furious Senator Mark Warner of Virginia – ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee – held an immediate press conference to denounce Twitter’s report as “frankly inadequate on every level.” pic.twitter.com/DAkX13igEE

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

After Warner had sent out a fundraising message asking for money, Twitter officials made a mockery of Warner.

“Warner has 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, and generate interest for the Nov 1st hearing that is planned,” Crowell made the comments in an email to Jack Dorsey (then-Twitter CEO).

Crowell noted then that Democrats were “taking cues from Hillary Clinton,” Who was trying to blame everyone but herself for her loss during the 2016 presidential election.

Taibbi pointed out that Clinton spoke that week. “It’s 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.”

10.“TAKING THEIR CUES FROM HILLARY CLINTON” Crowell stated that Dems are following Hillary Clinton’s lead, which she said the following week: “It’s 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.” pic.twitter.com/hLvh9rTNeP

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

“In growing anxiety over its PR problems, Twitter formed a ‘Russia Task Force’ to proactively self-investigate,” Taibbi continued citing internal company documents. “The ‘Russia Task Force’ started mainly with data shared from counterparts at Facebook, centered around accounts supposedly tied to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA).”

Twitter did a thorough investigation. “no evidence of a coordinated approach” They manually reviewed many accounts they flagged.

“All of the accounts found seem to be lone-wolf type activity,” Twitter:

13. OCT 13 2017 “No evidence of a coordinated approach, all of the accounts found seem to be lone-wolf type activity (different timing, spend, targeting, <$10k in ad spend).” pic.twitter.com/lmkVazTA5K

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

Twitter said: “Finished with investigation… 2500 full manual account reviews, we think this is exhaustive… 32 suspicious accounts and only 17 of those are connected with Russia, only 2 of those have significant spend one of which is Russia Today…remaining <$10k in spend.”

Taibbi observed that the Twitter data was later used to create misleading headlines and news reports.

17.Twitter’s search finding “only 2” significant accounts, “one of which is Russia Today,” This was based upon the same data that later inspired panic headlines, such as “Russian Influence Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone”: pic.twitter.com/rsANvZ9GfN

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

Taibbi noted that pressure from Democrats, who were sore over Donald Trump’s election victory, forced the company to change its tune on its “Russia problem” So the company could avoid “costly legislation” More bad press.

22.“Hi guys.. Just passing along for awareness the writeup here from the WashPost today on potential legislation (or new FEC regulations) that may affect our political advertising,” Crowell. pic.twitter.com/wbHK1s949y

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

Twitter worried about Warner’s feelings. “like tech industry was in denial for months.”

Twitter officials stated that U.S. legislators, presumably Democrats, had leaked the report’s findings to Democrats.

“Even as Twitter prepared to change its ads policy and remove RT and

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