Latest ‘Twitter Files’ Reveal ‘Struggle’ With Public Agencies, and Adam Schiff’s Push to Censor Journalist
“Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry,” independent journalist Matt Taibbi reported along with a screengrab of the request.
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi released the latest round of Twitter Files Tuesday, and among other things, the documents showed a mounting concern amongst Twitter higher-ups who were “struggling” with how they were increasingly being bypassed by “public and private agencies,” which in some cases were going directly to the media with their suspicions about accounts that were allegedly spreading “Russian disinformation” related to the Wuhan coronavirus.
https://t.co/C7kGNwToWZ 2020, Twitter was struggling with the problem of public and private agencies bypassing them and going straight to the media with lists of suspect accounts.
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
Of particular concern to Twitter were actions taken by the State Department’s “Global Engagement Center,” which took their case straight to the media rather than going through Twitter first:
4.The GEC flagged accounts as “Russian personas and proxies” based on criteria like, “Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,” blaming “research conducted at the Wuhan institute,” and “attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA.” pic.twitter.com/a4xBotQZ2m
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
The GEC’s “report” got the attention of numerous “news” organizations, including AFP and Politico, both of which ran with the story:
6.The GEC still led directly to news stories like the AFP’s headline, “Russia-linked disinformation campaign led to coronavirus alarm, US says,” and a Politico story about how “Russian, Chinese, Iranian Disinformation Narratives Echo One Another.” pic.twitter.com/iLEZVJ19rH
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
Ironically, the documents tweeted by Taibbi also indicated that the increasingly cozy relationship between agencies in the federal government and Twitter made some on the Twitter side uncomfortable in part because they were starting to be flooded by requests from multiple departments and were having problems keeping up with it all:
26.Requests arrived and were escalated from all over: from Treasury, the NSA, virtually every state, the HHS, from the FBI and DHS, and more: pic.twitter.com/QYJBjPEJZW
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
37.“I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR WORK LOAD”: Requests poured in from FBI offices all over the country, day after day, hour after hour: If Twitter didn’t act quickly, questions came: “Was action taken?” “Any movement?” pic.twitter.com/KAu2YesocC
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
9.Twitter was also trying to reduce the number of agencies with access to Roth. “If these folks are like House Homeland Committee and DHS, once we give them a direct contact with Yoel, they will want to come back to him again and again,” said policy director Carlos Monje. pic.twitter.com/ytvK532j4M
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
Not surprisingly, Twitter was also receiving requests from powerful figures in Congress to ban the accounts of their critics. Then-Intel Committee Chair Adam Schiff’s office requested writer Paul Sperry’s account be banned ostensibly on “QAnon conspiracy” grounds. In reality – and as the NY Post also observed, Schiff likely targeted him primarily because Sperry’s reporting at RealClearInvestigations shined an unflattering spotlight on Schiff’s “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella:
28.“WE DON’T DO THIS” Even Twitter declined to honor Schiff’s request at the time. Sperry was later suspended, however. pic.twitter.com/9PX2Zw5Nzj
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023
Interestingly enough, just a few weeks ago, Schiff attacked Twitter CEO Elon Musk over his brief suspension of several journalists, which Musk did on the grounds that they were allegedly trying to do end-runs around Twitter’s policy on revealing personal information about a user without their permission:
Elon Musk calls himself a free speech absolutist, to justify turning a blind eye to hatred and bigotry on Twitter.
But when journalists report unfavorable news, they are banned without warning.
The devotion to free speech is apparently not that absolute. But the hypocrisy is.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) December 16, 2022
REP. SCHIFF: Free press in support of me but not for thee
“We’ve got a big problem right now with social media companies and their failure to moderate content and the explosion of hate on Twitter, the banning of journalists on Twitter. […] pic.twitter.com/jX6GxeDyPc
— Ethan Harsell (@ethan_harsell) January 3, 2023
In response to Taibbi’s Twitter thread – which of course, was made possible by Musk turning over the documents to Taibbi, Musk tagged Schiff in a tweet and included an important question:
Hey @RepAdamSchiff, what’s this?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 3, 2023
Just after the Christmas holiday and in reply to a reporter’s suggestion that Musk’s “reputation is in danger” thanks to the time he’s spending on Twitter, Musk promised there would be much more to come in terms of exposing the bad actors under the old Twitter regime, in the media, and within the federal government.
As always, stay tuned.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
I just spoke to my buddies in the MSM and they told me that a sitting congressman violating the 1st Amendment is a giant nothingburger. Move on, LI!
Well, the (D) after the name grants immunity – duh!
That’s illegal. When is he going ot be jailed for years without trial?
So the USSR really did win the Cold War. Just took a while to see it.
Guess I’m either a bot or a Russian persona due to my views regarding an unknown virus of unspecified origin.
Apparently the only politician who did not tread on people’s rights was Donald Trump.
Yeah, that’s a curious dog that isn’t barking. Lots of requests to have Twitter mute and censor seem to be coming from the Usual Suspects, but very little to none coming from the Trump White House.
Schiff is an evil, evil man. He is a died-in-the-wool fascist and a scammer. Let’s see his tax returns.
So we know that government officials can’t suppress individual free speech. “It violates the First Amendment”, or something.
But serious question…. what are the legal ramifications? We now know that it’s exactly what they’ve been doing, at massive scale. So what’s the punishment? Is there one?
KKK-era laws:
18 U.S. Code § 241 – Conspiracy against rights
18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law
I haven’t ascertained this myself, but I’ve been informed that suing under these laws has a 0% success rate when brought by a “civilian” party. It has been productive only when invoked by government prosecutors (such as against Stacey Koon, Lawrence Powell, &c, who were exonerated by their state justice system for injuring Rodney King).
To play this right, we would need to get the government to lodge the complaint. Flushing Kevin McCarthy is not sufficient in itself, but a necessary first step.
The collusion between tyranical govt. and belligerent business is the literal textbook definition of fascism.
This govt. is the one our founders warned against, and attempted to mitigate with a bill of rights. Yet, marxist meat puppet Schiff aggressively denied these rights to specific people.
You or I would be in prison if we aggressively denied ‘protected’ people their civil rights.
When will Schiff be prosecuted?
Another example that The Screaming D’s and their crew make no distinction between the party, the government, the country, and the people.
If only there were a name for this one-party, one-volk, “Everything within the state; nothing outside the state; nothing against the state.” Someone really needs to coin a term for that, something about being “stronger together” bound together as a group, or something.
Private agencies?
I guess that means non-governmental organizations – likely
501c3 non-profit and non-partisan – lobbying Twitter to censor opposition groups and individuals. We need to know the names of these “agancies.” I want to look at their internal memoranda and interagency email correspondence.
I specifically want to bust woke commissars [achivists] employed by the non-partisan and non-profit archive.org.
Schiff is a typical woke intersectional diehard-freedom of speech for himself but for noone else
Schiff is a scumbag who should be tied in a sack with wild dogs and dumped in the Potomac.