12. Twitter execs weren’t sure about Clemson’s Media Forensics Lab (“too chummy with HPSCI”), and weren’t keen on the Rand Corporation (“too close to USDOD”), but others were deemed just right.
@Truth
@Truth
13. NGOs ideally serve as a check on corporations and the government. Not long ago, most of these institutions viewed themselves that way. Now, intel officials, “researchers,” and executives at firms like Twitter are effectively one team - or Signal group, as it were:
@Truth
@Truth
14. The Woodstock of the Censorship-Industrial Complex came when the Aspen Institute - which receives millions a year from both the State Department and USAID - held a star-studded confab in Aspen in August 2021 to release its final report on “Information Disorder.”
@Truth
@Truth
15. The report was co-authored by Katie Couric and Chris Krebs, the founder of the DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Yoel Roth of Twitter and Nathaniel Gleicher of Facebook were technical advisors. Prince Harry joined Couric as a Commissioner.
@Truth
@Truth
16. Their taxpayer-backed conclusions: the state should have total access to data to make searching speech easier, speech offenders should be put in a “holding area," and government should probably restrict disinformation, “even if it means losing some freedom.”
@Truth
@Truth
17. Note Aspen recommended the power to mandate data disclosure be given to the FTC, which this committee just caught in a clear abuse of office, demanding information from Twitter about communications with (and identities of) Twitter Files reporters.
@Truth
@Truth
18. Naturally Twitter’s main concern regarding the Aspen report was making sure Facebook got hit harder by any resulting regulatory changes:
@Truth
@Truth
19. The same agencies (FBI, DHS/CISA, GEC) invite the same “experts” (Thomas Rid, Alex Stamos), funded by the same foundations (Newmark, Omidyar, Knight) trailed by the same reporters (Margaret Sullivan, Molly McKew, Brandy Zadrozny) seemingly to every conference, every panel.
@Truth
@Truth
21.While Twitter sometimes pushed back on technical analyses from NGOs about who is and isn't a “bot,” on subject matter questions like vaccines or elections they instantly defer to sites like Politifact, funded by the same names that fund the NGOs: Koch, Newmark, Knight.
@Truth
@Truth
22. Twitter Files repeatedly show media acting as proxy for NGOs, with Twitter bracing for bad headlines if they don't nix accounts. Here, the Financial Times gives Twitter until end of day to provide a “steer” on whether RFK, Jr. and other vax offenders will be zapped.
@Truth
@Truth