Twitter FBI Agent Thinks Fewer Blacks Voted After 2012 Because Of Russians–Not Obama’s Departure

Internal Twitter materials released by Elon Musk and a bombshell lawsuit brought against the U.S. government by Louisiana and Missouri have revealed the key role an FBI agent named Elvis Chan Contributed to the push for the platform that would censor speech from conservatives.

But Chan, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco Division cyber branch, also made some remarkable statements on the topic out in the open, as part of a 149-page academic thesis he wrote on “social media companies and U.S. government efforts to combat Russian influence campaigns during the 2020 U.S. elections.”

Chan’s thesis, submitted to The Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California, in September, 2021, reveals an animus toward former President Trump, a disregard for the First Amendment, and a blindness toward the bureau’s well-chronicled transgressions in investigating the 45th president. Here are some key takeaways. thesis:

1) Chan’s best evidence that the Russians made a difference in the 2016 presidential election is that the black voting rate declined from 2012—which is more readily explained by the fact that in 2012, the nation’s first black president was on the ballot.

Chan repeatedly referred to the fact that more blacks were present at the 2016 election than in 2012 as proof that the Russians had manipulated them. He only once mentions in passing that in 2012, Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, was on the ballot; in 2016, he was not.

“Analysis of voter turnout revealed a relatively high overall high voter turnout but low Black voter turnout in the 2016 elections. This combination of factors may have led to Vladimir Putin achieving his desired goals of eroding American faith in its democratic process and the election of Donald Trump,” He wrote.

He tries to make sense of why the 2020 election favoring Joe Biden was more clean than the 2016 election for Trump. He suggests that this was due to Russian propaganda. In 2016, non-black voters showed high turnout. He says that 2020 will see high turnout across all groups, which he believes is evidence that the Russian propaganda played a role. Not work.

“The ultimate proof was the record turnout of voters across all demographic groups, including Black voters… Ultimately, the American actions appeared effective in mitigating the Russian online tactics because voters were undeterred and turned out in record numbers.” By Chan’s logic, the FBI’s proof of whether Russia interfered in an election or not was seemingly whether blacks, a reliably Democrat voting bloc, came out to the polls.

2) Chan’s thesis laid out why the FBI needs to work with social media companies: As an end-run around the First Amendment.

“Due to First Amendment constraints, federal agencies have little involvement in Americans’ usage of social media,” He wrote. The FBI could however “communicate” with social media companies, and share information—the goal of which was having the social media companies take down posts that did not necessarily violate the law.

Chan suggested that the U.S. government create a “National Counter Information Operations Center as an interagency fusion center and focal point for countering disinformation campaigns… This center could be modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center, which also operates under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” He wrote. “An effective strategy would involve providing counter-narratives using factual information across various mediums to ensure the public received it, such as through news media and social media outlets.”

3) “Misinformation” Critique of the FBI was included that was true.

Chan celebrated that in 2019, Twitter removed 422 accounts allegedly controlled by Russia’s Internet Research Agency that “focused on promoting Trump, a right-wing meme that accused the FBI of misusing the Steele dossier to obtain a surveillance order on Trump associate, Carter Page, and Islamophobic rhetoric. The themes promoted by the IRA on Twitter showed its continued acuity in determining the hot-button issues that would agitate right-wing voters.”

Why are the topics so popular? “agitated right wing voters” The FBI relied on the discredited Steele dossier, which was funded by Democrats, to obtain a warrant for Page’s surveillance as part of its ill-fated attempt to link Trump with Russia. Kevin Clinesmith I pleaded guilty for falsifying documents related to the warrant application.

4) Chan claimed that some examples of misinformation campaigns had very little engagement.

He used an outside researcher as a source to prove that 59% were exposed to Russian misinformation in his dissertation. However, he didn’t find any examples that were worthy of being highlighted when it came time to highlight actual examples.

To illustrate, he gave an example. “Facebook Political Ads Targeting Black Voters” Only 223 views. He claimed that Twitter and other social networking companies didn’t act aggressively enough. However, this is often because social media companies were pointing to the fact that the activity was small.

He chose one. “PeaceData” as a notable Russia-linked campaign, but acknowledged that “Twitter noted that the PeaceData-associated Twitter accounts were ‘low quality and spammy,’

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