The FBI responds to its cozy relationship with Twitter as disclosed by Matt Taibbi

As Twitchy reported, we were treated to a whole new set of #TwitterFiles Friday evening, making it the fifth batch to be released so far. Each has had a theme, and Friday’s was “Twitter: The FBI Subsidiary.” “Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive,” Matt Taibbi reported. Some of the 150 emails between Yoel Roth and the FBI were mundane, like “Happy New Year.” A whole lot, though, were the FBI flagging certain accounts for Twitter to consider suspending. Some of these were low-follower accounts, and some of those were obvious parodies: “Don’t forget to vote in Georgia this Wednesday.” The FBI wasn’t shy about emailing its “Twitter contacts,” and one Twitter executive wrote about her “soon-to-be weekly meeting with DHS, DOJ, FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.”

The FBI would like to clear something up, and that’s that it regularly works with private sector entities to uncover wrongdoing. Just how many people inside the FBI were dedicated to looking for mean tweets, though?

The FBI replies to @mtaibbi "The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities. Private sector entities independently make decisions about”

— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) December 16, 2022

“…what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them."

— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) December 16, 2022

That may be … and Twitter 1.0 showed no problem bending over for every FBI request.

Big “This search is voluntary” vibes.

— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) December 17, 2022

Also, it's "National Security" vibes

— Beaker (@Beaker86183018) December 17, 2022

Sounds like they project A LOT.

— Kurt Schemers 🇺🇸 (@KurtSchemers) December 17, 2022

We read the documents. Any and all of their propaganda replies are useless

— Thomas Jeffers (@tjbigstick) December 17, 2022

Except the “stuff” they warned Facebook & Twitter about wasn’t malignant or foreign disinformation and censoring it specifically benefitted one political candidate.

Not to mention, does anyone really think that companies who operate in the US are going to ignore FBI suggestions?

— Blair Brandt (@BlairBrandt) December 17, 2022

So a parody account by an American citizen is now listed as “foreign malign influence actors?” Really… that’s new 🙄

— SeldenGADawgs (@SeldenGADawgs) December 17, 2022

Hogwash. They know who is American or not. They hated being mocked. This is a blatant abuse of our 1st amendment.

— Teresa † ن (@BlackIrishI) December 17, 2022

I mean did they really think Billy Baldwin was a foreign actor

— commonsense (@commonsense258) December 17, 2022

True … and they let his tweet slide anyway!

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Update:

This FBI response is disingenuous on multiple fronts. None of this expains flagging the silly jokes of ordinary Americans with low follower counts. Also, they are clearly not doing this in service of investigating crime. This is about domestic intelligence and opinion control. https://t.co/R3huYAiZau

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 17, 2022

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Editor’s Note:

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Related:

New #TwitterFiles thread (from Matt Taibbi) drops: ‘TWITTER: THE FBI SUBSIDIARY’ https://t.co/AesgKJhJUN

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 16, 2022