Claim: The "Twitter Files" reveal that the media and FBI worked to censor Americans and control a particular narrative.

Question

Claim: The "Twitter Files" reveal that the media and FBI worked together to censor Americans and control a particular narrative.

Source: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/01/15/taibbi_on_twitter_files_weve_discovered_a_public-private_censorship_bureaucracy.html#!

Answer 1

This claim is stating that media and FBI worked to censor and control a narrative. The narrative is not specified but we will be looking into particularly if FBI and media have worked to control posts. Based on the source Matthew Colin Taibbi was cited as the person who made statements that support this claim. He is an American author, journalist, and podcaster so fairly credible.

"We found one incredible e-mail from former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, reporter Michael Shellenberger found this, and it's essentially celebrating that the FBI had paid $3.4 million for, quote-unquote, 'processing requests.'"

According to multiple sources the FBI paid $3.4 million but as stated they did not claim this was becuase of censoring. Taibbi goes on to make opinion based conclusion including that this money could be paid because of censorship just as I could do so. 

"So, in other words, all those requests that were coming through to Twitter, and we see all the e-mail traffic talking about what a burden it was for the company to process all of these requests, that's what the money was for. For them to look at all these requests for content moderation and censorship that were coming from all these different agencies."

There has been some consideration that there will be content moderation in terms of war and crimes. According to the NY Times there will be new rules that are not looking solely to delete content and adding fact checking labels.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/business/twitter-content-moderation.html

In conclusion, I believe this claim is misleading because although one can assume, there are no hard facts that show the FBI and media have worked together to censor media.

Answer 2

Source: https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/house-gop-wants-fbis-twitter-censorship-reimbursement-records

The source listed says that the Twitter Files have shown that the FBI has coordinated extensively with Twitter to censor content. The House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said that the FBI served as a permanent ongoing surveillance operation and show their hostility to the first amendment. Numerous FBI agents have taken jobs at Twitter as well, showing their close relationship with each other.

House Republicans want to investigate the politicization of the FBI and other federal agencies, though Twitter censorship is part of a broader controversial effort to police domestic speech. The main narrative that the story focuses on is the 2020 election. Specifically, the FBI reimbursed Twitter ~3.5 million dollars for their time spent processing law enforcement requests around the 2020 election. There was also a very high number of FBI missives that were requests for Twitter to take action on election misinformation.

Comments

Thanks for your explanation. This is an interesting claim because different political parties have different beliefs on it. Like you noted, House Republicans feel there is censorship, while others feel this could be moderation of content. Having said that, I found that Newsweek and USA Today looked into a related claim. Newsweek says that "the claim that the FBI effectively paid Twitter to censor content, based on the available evidence, is misleading. Firstly, 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." USA said something similar. https://www.newsweek.com/did-fbi-pay-twitter-censor-content-elon-musk-claims-what-we-know-1769048 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/01/18/fact-check-fbi-gave-3-million-twitter-information-requests/11033845002/