Key moment in this twitter space with @elonmusk – in this clip he explains the current financial situation at @Twitter and the reason for his actions lately.
Originally tweeted by Alex (@TheSonOfWalkley) on December 21, 2022.
Tag: Big Tech
Twitter Files collected
Twitter Files 9 – State Governments caught censoring “election misinformation” using Twitter Partner Portal to unconstitutionally censor 1st Amendment rights of American citizens:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1605317665387577345 (Dec. 20 2022)
Twitter Files 8 – How Twitter Quietly Aided the Pentagon’s Covert Online PsyOp Campaign:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1605292454261182464 (Dec. 20 2022)
Twitter Files 7 – The FBI & the Hunter Biden Laptop:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1604871630613753856 (Dec. 19 2022)
Twitter Files 6 – Twitter, The FBI Subsidiary:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1603857534737072128 (Dec. 16 2022)
Twitter Files 5 – The Removal of Trump from Twitter:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1602364197194432515 (Dec. 12 2022)
Twitter Files 4 – The Removal of Donald Trump: January 7:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1601720455005511680 (Dec. 10 2022)
Twitter Files 3 – Deplatforming the President:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1601352083617505281 (Dec. 9 2022)
Twitter Files 2 – Twitter’s Secret BlackLists:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1601007575633305600 (Dec. 9 2022)
Twitter Files 1 – The Twitter Files:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1598822959866683394 (Dec. 2 2022)
Twitter Files Part 7 — How the FBI used and paid Twitter for censorship to throw the 2020 election
The Twitter File #7 release shows an active 2020 political mind-control operation conducted by the FBI in advance of the election. This operation is very similar to what the FBI did in 2016 when it fabricated the bogus Trump-Russia story—the infamous “Collusion Delusion.”
The FBI is spying and using information it gathers to control the American people. In doing this, the FBI is behaving no differently than the secret police of the Soviet Union, the FSB.
Social media is under DHS surveillance, facilitated by platform partnerships and the FBI mission is based on the results. Domestic thought crimes and wrong-speak are a high priority.
…Factually, a solid argument could be made that this specific release shows how the FBI Russiagate effort against Trump needed to exit Washington DC following the 2016 election, and so the majority of FBI’s anti-Trump activity for 2020 shifted to San Francisco.
Former FBI Legal Counsel James Baker was fired after the Russiagate activity started to surface. Baker then becomes the General Counsel at Twitter, able to coordinate and receive ongoing FBI efforts. Baker would be positioned to influence Twitter executives to accept the FBI instructions as well as deflect any internal questions that might arrise about the platform being used as an extension of the FBI.
As noted by James Baker’s email in the file release, Baker also dissuaded the financial concerns by coordinating payments from the FBI to cover the internal costs to Twitter. The FBI was paying Twitter for influence and control operations and James Baker handled that transfer of funds.
On the financial side of the equation, I would be on the lookout for additional information about subsidies on the tech side of the platform operation. Specifically, data processing offsets for Twitter as a result of this DHS/FBI/ODNI relationship. My suspicion for multiple years has been that Twitter tech shifted from an open portal type connection (front of building) to Twitter actually operating on the backbone of DHS servers (back of building).
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The massive herd of elephants in the guard tower is we know the FBI was doing this not just with Twitter but also with other social media platforms, MSM, and more. The even bigger and more important question is who is giving the FBI its orders? Who is controlling them? Who is really running this country? No way it’s Brandon. No way its us citizens. ABN
FBI paid Twitter $3.5M ‘to do its bidding’: Taxpayers’ money was used to suppress Hunter Biden laptop story and process agency’s requests to silence GOP voices – as fury mounts over secret state censorship of the American people
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- The most recent batch of Twitter files show that the FBI paid off staffers at the tech giant to the tune of $3 million
- The money was paid as a thank you as Twitter continued to dedicate staff to doing the bidding of the feds
- Emails show that Twitter’s deputy counsel Jim Baker met with feds to discuss suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story
- In response to the latest Twitter files dump, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said: ‘This is going to be a much bigger situation than people realize’
- Earlier it was revealed that former FBI lawyer turned Twitter general counsel Jim Baker helped to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story
Elon Musk breaks his silence on disastrous Twitter poll calling for his resignation as Kim Dotcom accuses government of hacking the vote: ‘They have the biggest bot army’
- Elon Musk has finally broken his silence after a Twitter poll recommended he stand down from the social media platform
- Kim Dotcom suggested the results of the Musk’s poll asking him to step down were skewed by fake accounts
- ‘Interesting’ Musk responded while also stating only Twitter Blue subscribers would be allowed to participate in policy-related polls in future
- Musk’s poll came after weeks of controversial decisions including sacking half the staff, readmitting far-right figures and suspending journalists
I agree with Dotcom. A vote like this can be valuable but a company like Twitter should not subject itself to crowd whims and what very probably is interference from government and other bad actors, both foreign and domestic. Musk reveals a charming but dangerous innocence with this poll and in other matters. He is probably deeply isolated by his wealth and unable to get wise, unvarnished input from anyone. If he does choose a new CEO, I suggest he ask The Ethical Skeptic to do it. He has displayed high integrity and courage, and he’s nobody’s fool. Lex Fridman has volunteered to do the job and he is a nice guy but displays a similar worldly innocence as Musk. ABN
1. TWITTER FILES: PART 7
The FBI & the Hunter Biden Laptop
How the FBI & intelligence community discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings both after and *before* The New York Post revealed the contents of his laptop on October 14, 2020
In Twitter Files #6, we saw the FBI relentlessly seek to exercise influence over Twitter, including over its content, its users, and its data.
It’s Time to Pay Attention to A.I. (ChatGPT and Beyond)
FBI ‘Deep State’ team of 80 people regularly handed Twitter lists of people to BAN – including actor Billy Baldwin and satire accounts, new trove of Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ reveal
A new trove of internal communications from Twitter suggests that the FBI maintained persistent contact with company employees in recent years, frequently proposing user bans, including for strident Trump critic and actor Billy Baldwin, and what appear to be satire accounts.
‘Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,’ argued journalist Matt Taibbi, who shared the documents in a Twitter thread on Friday afternoon.
FBI officials, meeting with Twitter executives, told them there was ‘no impediment’ to sharing classified information with them, according to an internal memo.
The files were the latest in a series of documents to be released after Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk gave a group of hand-picked journalists access to the company’s internal records.
‘Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth,’ claimed Taibbi.
‘But a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts,’ he added.
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1. THREAD: The Twitter Files, Part Six
TWITTER, THE FBI SUBSIDIARY
2. The #TwitterFiles are revealing more every day about how the government collects, analyzes, and flags your social media content.
3. Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.
4. Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.
5. Some are mundane, like San Francisco agent Elvis Chan wishing Roth a Happy New Year along with a reminder to attend “our quarterly call next week.” Others are requests for information into Twitter users related to active investigations.
6. But a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.
7. The FBI’s social media-focused task force, known as FTIF, created in the wake of the 2016 election, swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.
8. Federal intelligence and law enforcement reach into Twitter included the Department of Homeland Security, which partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content.
9. It’s no secret the government analyzes bulk data for all sorts of purposes, everything from tracking terror suspects to making economic forecasts.
10. The #TwitterFiles show something new: agencies like the FBI and DHS regularly sending social media content to Twitter through multiple entry points, pre-flagged for moderation.
Continue reading “1. THREAD: The Twitter Files, Part Six”Mike Davis on “the government colluding with monopolists”
Trump Announces Plans to Protect Free Speech and Calls for a “Digital Bill of Rights”
Matt Gaetz Insists He’s ‘Virtually Certain’ Kevin McCarthy’s Never Been ‘Censored’ by Big Tech: ‘He’s Controlled Opposition’
Rep. Matt Gaetz floated his theory that Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has never been censored by Big Tech because he’s the “controlled opposition.”
On the Tuesday edition of Firebrand with Matt Gaetz, he spoke about his tweets being limited and getting banned by Twitter while McCarthy, according to Gaetz, has never had to deal with the same issue.
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TikTok is ‘malware’ and this is why
nostr – Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays
The simplest open protocol that is able to create a censorship-resistant global “social” network once and for all.
It doesn’t rely on any trusted central server, hence it is resilient; it is based on cryptographic keys and signatures, so it is tamperproof; it does not rely on P2P techniques, therefore it works.
This is a work-in-progress. Join the Telegram group!
Very short summary of how it works, if you don’t plan to read anything else:
Everybody runs a client. It can be a native client, a web client, etc. To publish something, you write a post, sign it with your key and send it to multiple relays (servers hosted by someone else, or yourself). To get updates from other people, you ask multiple relays if they know anything about these other people. Anyone can run a relay. A relay is very simple and dumb. It does nothing besides accepting posts from some people and forwarding to others. Relays don’t have to be trusted. Signatures are verified on the client side.
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This was recommended by Jack Dorsey this morning. Something like this has to be done. We all have to support it. A communication system that cannot be controlled by governments or corporations or secret societies, once established, will be a major turning point in world history. There is no other path forward for free speech, individual rights, human rights, a flourishing world civilization than this one. This kind of system is also in perfect alignment with the American First Amendment and core Buddhist ethical teachings. ABN
a native internet protocol for social media ~ Jack Dorsey
[All of the below is Dorsey’s blog on how he thinks Twitter and social media should be operated. I have bolded some sections in addition to the few places he bolded. I completely agree with what Dorsey is saying and hope all readers of ABN and in the world read what he has written. I have taken the liberty of posting his entire blog post here to ensure we have a copy of it. ABN]
| There’s a lot of conversation around the #TwitterFiles. Here’s my take, and thoughts on how to fix the issues identified. I’ll start with the principles I’ve come to believe…based on everything I’ve learned and experienced through my past actions as a Twitter co-founder and lead: 1) Social media must be resilient to corporate and government control. 2) Only the original author may remove content they produce. 3) Moderation is best implemented by algorithmic choice. The Twitter when I led it and the Twitter of today do not meet any of these principles. This is my fault alone, as I completely gave up pushing for them when an activist entered our stock in 2020. I no longer had hope of achieving any of it as a public company with no defense mechanisms (lack of dual-class shares being a key one). I planned my exit at that moment knowing I was no longer right for the company. The biggest mistake I made was continuing to invest in building tools for us to manage the public conversation, versus building tools for the people using Twitter to easily manage it for themselves. This burdened the company with too much power, and opened us to significant outside pressure (such as advertising budgets). I generally think companies have become far too powerful, and that became completely clear to me with our suspension of Trump’s account. As I’ve said before, we did the right thing for the public company business at the time, but the wrong thing for the internet and society. Much more about this here: |
| jack@jackI do not celebrate or feel pride in our having to ban @realDonaldTrump from Twitter, or how we got here. After a clear warning we’d take this action, we made a decision with the best information we had based on threats to physical safety both on and off Twitter. Was this correct?12:16 AM – 14 Jan 2021 |
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