Elon Musk, Hunter Biden & President Joe Biden.
Twitter Live: The latest installment from Twitter files reveals new information. It confirms that the FBI not only pressured the social media site to suppress reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop, but that it also paid Twitter employees millions of dollars to do so. The thread titled, “TWITTER FILES: PART 7″, has published by independent journalist Michael Shellenberger.
Elon Musk re-tweeted the ‘Twitter Live” tread with the comment,” Government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public.”
Government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public https://t.co/eSEwcZlGjt
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2022
The most high profile of these projects included suppressing reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop and influencing the platform right before the 2020 elections.
Twitter Live thread
On October 14, 2020, The New York Post reported that Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.
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
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) December 19, 2022
The Post’s story was based on emails from a Delaware repair shop owner, who had possession of Hunter’s laptop. Hunter had reportedly left his computer at the shop for repairs but never came back to pick it up.
Members of the intelligence community, major TV networks, and executives at Twitter worked overtime denying that the Hunter Biden laptop was real.They called it “the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
But Shellenberger shares that the FBI was in possession of the laptop way back in 2019 and knew its contents. The organization then reached out to Twitter’s former trust and safety head, Yoel Roth, ahead of the New York Post’s publication to suppress the story.
8. The next day, October 14, 2020, The New York Post runs its explosive story revealing the business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. Every single fact in it was accurate. pic.twitter.com/TC2AnLNJAw
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) December 19, 2022
“Within hours, Twitter and other social media companies censor the NY Post article, preventing it from spreading and, more importantly, undermining its credibility in the minds of many Americans,” Shellenberger explained.
He notes that in September 2020, Roth “participated in an Aspen Institute ‘tabletop exercise’ on a potential ‘Hack-and-Dump’ operation.”
29. As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — "Bu alumni" — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals. pic.twitter.com/prVhPGohOC
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) December 19, 2022
Also read: Twitter New Feature “Live Tweeting” First Episode: Hunter Biden Story
When the news broke Roth was already “trained” on how to deal with it. “This feels a lot like a somewhat subtle leak operation,” Roth wrote to his colleagues when flagging the NY Post’s story for censorship.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg also confirms the FBI did the same on that platform.
13. They did the same to Facebook, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “The FBI basically came to us [and] was like, ‘Hey… you should be on high alert. We thought that there was a lot of Russian propaganda in 2016 election. There's about to be some kind of dump similar to that.'" pic.twitter.com/yPGP8nYgCq
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) December 19, 2022
Shellenberger goes on to explain that a large number of former FBI employees were also hired at Twitter around the same time.
The goal was to shape how the media covered it and how social media carried it,” Shellenberger explained.
29. As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — "Bu alumni" — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals. pic.twitter.com/prVhPGohOC
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) December 19, 2022
“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,” Shellenberger added.
45. 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.
By Dec. 2020, Baker and his colleagues even sent a note of thanks to the FBI for its work. pic.twitter.com/ZEASt2aXXm
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) December 19, 2022
The “Twitter Files” have rekindled charges that political censorship by Big Tech helped President Biden win the 2020 election, and led to the suppression of numerous conservative voices.
Also read: “Live Tweeting” Fifth Episode : The Removal Of Trump From Twitter
Shellenberger points out evidence that suggests the intelligence agency is prepping for the 2024 presidential election.
27. As general counsel of the FBI, Baker played a central role in making the case internally for an investigation of Donald Trump https://t.co/TMIMTpUjDw
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) December 19, 2022
29. As of 2020, there were so many former FBI employees — "Bu alumni" — working at Twitter that they had created their own private Slack channel and a crib sheet to onboard new FBI arrivals. pic.twitter.com/prVhPGohOC
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) December 19, 2022
