HOT TOPIC: Did the FBI Pay Twitter to Illegally Censor Info? Short Answer: No, They Did Not

What the FBI did was perfectly lawful and evenhanded

Once again a very long article but one that needs to be addressed at this time. Enjoy.

Short Intro: A trove of emails may be truthful in nature, but their contents may or may not be truthful or factual as evidence relating to a legal matter, a crime, and such – in other words the emails and tweets are real but their contents may or may not be.

What follows is from Newsweek with the headline below and it falls into the category of a very good story, well written, timely, however, it seems to leave a lot questions, or does it?

“Did the FBI Pay Twitter to Censor Content as Elon Musk Claims? What We Know”

My point of view:

1. Reporters report news, events, and such to inform the public.

2. Their reports may or may not be true or factual and they should say so or not.

3. The story may or may not have a conclusion, and/or it may be true or not.

4. The mails and texts mentioned in a story are evidence whether the contents are true or not is a different matter.

5. Reporting the news raises issues, concerns, doubt, speculation, proof, opinions, and such. All or some may be true or not.

Example of a Fact: The Sun rises in the East and sets in the West and it is also true.

Not so Factual: A gun is found next to a body. Your finger prints are on the gun. Was it the same gun used to kill the person (e.g., does the bullet match the gun or not). Did you pull the trigger, or did you pick up the gun as you moved the body to try and revive the person, and simply touched the gun thus leaving your fingerprints on it?

Facts are something that's indisputable, based on empirical research and quantifiable measures that go beyond theories.

They're proven through calculation and experience, or they're something that definitively occurred in the past. 

Truth is entirely different; it may include fact, but it can also include belief.

This Newsweek article needs close attention for a lot of reasons stated above and in my opinion and formatted to fit the blog:

A trove of communications leaked this month from behind the scenes of Twitter has revealed in new detail the company's relationships with a number of government officials and agencies such as the FBI known as the “Twitter files,” these threads have unveiled conversations that show security officials were in contact with the social media giant before its takeover by the company's new CEO Elon Musk. Promoted by Musk, the conversations have been presented in chapters by a team of freelance journalists in an attempt to shine a light on the company's decision-making, including the suppression of news stories and the suspension of public figures such as Trump.

Claims that the FBI effectively paid Twitter to suppress stories on its platform, such as the Hunter Biden laptop story, have been shared by many public figures including Musk. The claim follows one of the most recent releases of the “Twitter files,” a series of leaks detailing communications at Twitter.

Among the most recent releases, author Michael Shellenberger refocuses the attention around that story and the requests made by the FBI to review content shared on the platform. In one of the 49 tweets posted by Shellenberger on December 19, 2022, one even suggested that a financial motive may have influenced Twitter's decision-making.

Referring to an email between Twitter executives, Shellenberger tweeted: “The FBI's influence campaign may have been helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for its staff time.”

That email, purportedly sent to former Twitter official Jim Baker, said: “Jim, FYI, in 2019 SCALE instituted a reimbursement program for our legal process response from the FBI. Prior to the start of the program, Twitter chose not to collect under this statutory right of reimbursement for the time spent processing requests from the FBI. I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019! This money is used by LP for things like the TTR and other LE-related projects (LE training, tooling, etc.).”

That email was sent in February 2021, four months after the release of the New York Post's first exposé of the Hunter Biden laptop details. Shellenberger's speculative suggestion that the FBI's “influence campaign may have been helped by the millions of dollars it paid was interpreted as fact by some observers.”

Many public figures, including Elon Musk, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH),  Donald Trump Jr., and Fox News Host Sean Hannity all tweeted messages claiming summarily that the FBI paid Twitter to censor content.

Quoting Shellenberger's thread, Elon Musk tweeted that “government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public” in a post receiving more than 440,000 engagements in two days. 

As Shellenberger highlights, and as Newsweek has previously stated, the FBI was in contact with Twitter and social media companies in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.

The FBI and other agencies warned these companies of potential misinformation campaigns that could disrupt the election, citing fears of interference from foreign actors.

However, the claim that the FBI effectively paid Twitter to censor content, based on the available evidence, is misleading.

First, the Shellenberger thread does not provide sufficient evidence of a quid pro quo relationship between the FBI and Twitter, only the contact that the bureau had with the social media company and a “reimbursement mentioned separately.”

The thrust of Shellenberger's tweets is that communications between the FBI and Twitter around the time of the Hunter Biden story (and the warnings it received prior to its publication) could be interpreted as an attempt to influence the company to suppress the story.

Second, that combined with the money the company was said to have received, ultimately leads Shellenberger to suggest that: “The FBI's influence campaign was made successful through financial incentives.”

However, there are also details that show executives at Twitter were not unduly pressured by the bureau either.

Even one of Shellenberger's tweets states that former Twitter official Yoel Roth told the FBI, after it asked the company to change data sharing arrangements, that: “It would need to use normal search warrant processes to do so.”

Later, Shellenberger suggests Roth had sided with security advice, attaching an email from him that detailed some of the company's response to the Hunter Biden story, recommending: “Warning + de-amplification.”

The email also stated that: “The key factor informing our approach is consensus from experts monitoring election security and disinformation.”

Shellenberger later tweeted: “In the end, the FBI's influence campaign aimed at executives at news media, Twitter, & other social media companies worked: they censored & discredited the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

Whether or not one views this as proof that the FBI was directly responsible for the story's suppression, the suggestion that Twitter was reimbursed to censor it is still not sufficiently evidenced.

The emails about “reimbursement” do not state the finances were part of a quid pro quo arrangement or if they were directly related to the Hunter Biden story. 

There are details of what the “reimbursement” process mentioned in the thread pertains to and Newsweek could find no evidence that Twitter ran a premium service to moderate or investigate content. Its moderation tools are available for free to anyone.

So why then was there “reimbursement?” An analysis of Shellenberger's thread published on December 20, 2022, states that under U.S. law, companies receiving requests from legal authorities “can be reimbursed for fulfilling them.”

Fact: U.S. Code 18 §2706 (P.L 99-508 Oct 21, 1986) states (from Cornell Law): “A governmental entity obtaining the contents of communications, records, or other information under section 2702, 2703, or 2704 of this title shall pay to the person or entity assembling or providing such information a fee for reimbursement for such costs as are reasonably necessary and which have been directly incurred in searching for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing such information. Such reimbursable costs shall include any costs due to necessary disruption of normal operations of any electronic communication service or remote computing service in which such information may be stored.”

There is no further information under the U.S. Code about the exact calculation for requests and no information in the Shellenberger tweets about how Twitter calculated the “reimbursement.” 

As research also mentions, there appears to be no grounds for a request to be made to censor accounts or material being shared on social media this way: “The reimbursement that is talked about in that email is about complying with these information production orders that have been reviewed and signed by a judge.” (e.g., just like that obtained for judge’s signed search warrant)

It's worth noting that article do not provide primary source evidence that this was the reimbursement process which Twitter sought payment for. Newsweek contacted Twitter and former executives and Jim Baker to ask if U.S. Code 18 §2706 was engaged.

The response: In its Guidelines for law enforcement, Twitter's website note under the heading “Cost reimbursement states: Twitter may seek reimbursement for costs associated with information produced pursuant to legal process and as permitted by law (e.g., under 18 U.S.C. §2706).”

Thus, as mentioned earlier, Shellenberger's inference between the reimbursement process and the FBI's communications could be taken as speculative, not confirmatory.

However, based on the current public evidence, there aren't sufficient grounds to conclude that the FBI successfully requested by way of payment the censorship of the Hunter Biden story or other stories.

The bottom line: While the absence of evidence does not mean that a financially-motivated relationship or contract didn't exist, the details in the Twitter files, alongside U.S. Code that mentions a reimbursement process backed by law, which doesn't mention censorship of content.

For now, all this raises significant doubts about such a relationship between Twitter and the government purported by Musk.

Related story angle from CNN here. The more we know the better for the truth to shine through… keep up the research on this story.

My 2 Cents: The more sources of this story are researched and compared the better. Don’t fall into the trap of reading or watching on source or two – I always try to research 3-5 sources on the same topic – that is the best. 

Far too many people stay in their silo with only one source to an important story like this one, but that is ever good way to find the truth of the story. 

Newsweek and CNN links above are both very good sources as well as Politico, The Atlantic, and even Tech Dirt.

Enjoy the research for the truth.

Thanks for stopping by.