‘Twitter Files’ Expose Coordination with CIA, State Department, Pentagon

The latest installment of the “Twitter Files” revealed that the FBI acted “as a doorman” for the social media giant to other government agencies, including the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon.

“Twitter had so much contact with so many agencies that executives lost track,” journalist Matt Taibbi wrote as he released the ninth batch of internal Twitter files on Saturday evening. “Is today the DOD, and tomorrow the FBI? Is it the weekly call, or the monthly meeting? It was dizzying.”

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FBI Paid Twitter Millions, Had Close Relationship with Execs and Staff, Emails Show

The FBI paid Twitter millions as a reimbursement for the time the company spent processing the FBI’s requests, according to internal documents published by author Michael Shellenberger Monday, in the most recent installment of Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s ongoing “Twitter Files.”

In an email with the subject line “Run the business – we made money!” an employee, whose name was redacted, reports to then-Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker, that the FBI paid Twitter nearly $3.5 million dollars between October 2019 and February 2021, Shellenberger reported. Baker, a former FBI agent, was the agency’s general counsel during Operation Crossfire Hurricane, and approved the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page via improper use of the Steele dossier, according to a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

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‘Twitter Files Part 4’ Details How Platform Changed Policy Specifically to Ban ‘Trump Alone’

The fourth entry in the ongoing “Twitter Files” series of explosive revelations dropped on Saturday night, with part four in the series focusing on the removal of Donald Trump from the popular social media platform in early 2021. 

The latest thread, published by writer Michael Shellenberger, details the process that “Twitter executives” took as they were “build[ing] the case for a permanent ban” against the former Republican president. 

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Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey Leaves Company’s Board of Directors

Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey has exited the social media company’s board of directors.

The planned departure comes as Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk continues his attempt to purchase the company. The company initially announced last November that Dorsey would leave the board when his term expired at the company’s 2022 shareholder meeting, which took place Wednesday.

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Florida at Center of Bid to Slow Musk’s Purchase of Twitter

Florida is once again at the center of a Twitter war, this time by an Orlando pension fund attempting to slow its purchase after Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state was looking into ways it can potentially “hold accountable” Twitter’s board of directors.

The city of Orlando’s Police Pension Fund filed a class action lawsuit May 6 in an attempt to block or slow the sale of Twitter. It argues Delaware law prevents billionaire Elon Musk from immediately purchasing Twitter because it alleges he’s “an invested stockholder.”

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New Twitter CEO: ‘Why Should I Distinguish Between White People and Racists’

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down Monday, only to be replaced by a new chief who immediately found himself in hot water for, of all things, an inflammatory tweet. 

“‘If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists,'” Twitter’s new CEO Parag Agrawal said in 2010 tweet. 

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Stokes ‘Hyperinflation’ Fears

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

 Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stirred up more fears around inflation with his comments over the weekend saying that hyperinflation is “happening.”

“Hyperinflation is going to change everything,” the tech leader posted on Twitter. “It’s happening.”

The post sparked a flurry of responses. Replying to comments on his post, Dorsey added, “It will happen in the US soon, and so the world.”

Hyperinflation is defined by Investopedia as “rapid, excessive, and out-of-control general price increases in an economy.”

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CloutHub Founder Jeff Brain Reacts to Trump’s Big Tech Lawsuit

Jeff Brain

The founder of CloutHub, a free speech social media network, has responded to former President Donald J. Trump’s class action lawsuit against several Silicon Valley titans, which the forty-fifth president announced Wednesday. 

“I am pleased that President Trump is fighting back against Big Tech corporations after enduring months of blatant injustices,” Jeff Brain said in press release. “His lawsuit is based on the infringement of his fundamental free speech rights that powerful companies such as Facebook and Twitter imposed based on their own political bias; a bias that has no place with such important keepers of our national public square online.”

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Twitter Blasted for Letting ‘Uncle Tim’ Trend After Scott Rebuttal

The term “Uncle Tim,” a play on the racist term “Uncle Tom” often used to deride African Americans perceived as working against their own racial interests, trended on Twitter Wednesday night after Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) gave his rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s joint address to Congress. 

Country music star John Rich of “Big and Rich” blasted the microblogging site’s CEO Jack Dorsey over the trend:

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Hungary Weighs Big Tech Sanctions over ‘Systemic Abuses’ of Free Speech

Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga said Monday that Hungary is considering sanctions against big tech firms over alleged “systemic abuses” of free speech, Reuters reported.

Varga plans to meet with the Hungarian Competition Authority this week to discuss possible penalties for what he says are unfair commercial practices utilized by social media firms including Facebook and Twitter, according to Reuters. In addition, the minister plans to convene a meeting with the state-sponsored Digital Freedom Committee.

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Guaranteed Income Coming to 55 Richmond, Virginia Families for Two Years

Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney is expanding a guaranteed income program, thanks to new funds from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. In October, days before Stoney was re-elected, he announced the Richmond Resiliance Initiative (RRI) would provide $500 per month for two years to 18 needy families, according to a press release. On Tuesday, Stoney announced that the city would receive a $500,000 grant that would allow them to expand the program to 55 families, thanks to a $15 million donation from Dorsey to association Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.

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Commentary: Silicon Valley Titans Lie Again as Congress Meekly Looks On

After a series of mishaps involving muted senators, virtual cross-talk, and “connectivity issues” befuddling one of the world’s most tech-savvy men, the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday for what has now become a performative ritual: senators of both parties yell about different aspects of social media, the tech giants respond with bland, vague, noncommittal statements. And nothing substantive happens.

This is exactly where the Senate Commerce Committee found itself on Wednesday, when Big Tech was confronted with a host of critics and without any defenders—but ultimately very little in the way of committed follow-up from legislators.

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Social Media CEOs Get Earful on Bias, Warning of New Limits

With next week’s election looming, the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google were scolded by Republicans at a Senate hearing Wednesday for alleged anti-conservative bias in the companies’ social media platforms and received a warning of coming restrictions from Congress.

Lawmakers of both parties are assessing the companies’ tremendous power to disseminate speech and ideas, and are looking to challenge their long-enjoyed bedrock legal protections for online speech.

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Jack Dorsey Donates $10 Million to a Group Headed by an Activist Who Wants to Make Racism Unconstitutional

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced Thursday his decision to gave a no-strings-attached $10 million donation to an anti-racist group headed by an activist who once promoted the idea of amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit racism.

The tech billionaire gave the money to Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, a project launched by scholar Ibram X. Kendi, who expressed support in 2019 for a constitutional amendment that he claims would “fix the original sin of racism.” Dorsey said in a tweet Thursday that he is grateful for Kendi’s work.

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Twitter ‘Embarrassed’ as Hack Hits 130 Accounts

Twitter says the hack that compromised the accounts of some of its most high-profile users targeted 130 people. The hackers were able to reset the passwords of 45 of those accounts.

The San Francisco-based company said in a blog post Saturday that for up to eight of these accounts the attackers also downloaded the account’s information through the “Your Twitter Data” tool. None of the eight were verified accounts, Twitter said, adding that it is contacting the owners of the affected accounts.

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Twitter Disables Trump Campaign’s George Floyd Video Tribute

Jack Dorsey

Twitter has blocked a Trump campaign video tribute to George Floyd over a copyright claim, in a move that adds to tensions between the social media platform and the U.S. president, one of its most widely followed users.

The company put a label on a video posted by the @TeamTrump account that said, “This media has been disabled in response to a claim by the copyright owner.” The video was still up on President Donald Trump’s YouTube channel and includes pictures of Floyd, whose death sparked widespread protests, at the start.

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Addresses Trump Fact-Check, Asks Media to ‘Leave Our Employees Out Of This’

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took sole responsibility Wednesday night after his company applied a fact-check on a tweet from President Donald Trump suggesting California’s mail-in ballot move is “fraudulent.”

Trump’s tweet Tuesday suggesting mail-in ballot votes are fraudulent could mislead people into believing they don’t have to register to get a ballot, Dorsey wrote on Twitter. He also asked people to lay off his employees.

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Mega GOP Donor Paul Singer Buys a Large Stake in Twitter, Seeks to Replace Jack Dorsey: Report

A Republican donor reportedly purchased a major stake in Twitter with the intention of pushing out CEO Jack Dorsey, who the billionaire says is too distracted with other ventures.

Activist investor Elliott Management wants to make changes at the social media company, the Bloomberg News report noted Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter. Paul Singer, the billionaire behind Elliott, once opposed President Donald Trump’s campaign but has since grown more supportive.

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Better Than a Direct Message: Trump Meets Twitter CEO

  U.S. President Donald Trump met Tuesday with the top executive of Twitter, just hours after complaining the social media platform treats him unfairly. Trump, shortly after the Oval Office meeting ended with Twitter Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, tweeted a photo of the discussion and expressed a more positive tone from his tweeted Tuesday morning complaints. The president called it a “great meeting,” saying they discussed lots of subjects regarding the platform and social media in general. Great meeting this afternoon at the @WhiteHouse with @Jack from @Twitter. Lots of subjects discussed regarding their platform, and the world of social media in general. Look forward to keeping an open dialogue! pic.twitter.com/QnZi579eFb — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 23, 2019 “Look forward to keeping an open dialogue!” the @realDonaldTrump tweet concluded. Dorsey tweeted later Tuesday, “Thank you for the time. Twitter is here to serve the entire public conversation, and we intend to make it healthier and more civil. Thanks for the discussion about that.” Trump, as president-elect, met with executives of top technology companies in December 2016, but no one from Twitter was invited. Tuesday’s meeting between Trump and Dorsey was at the invitation of the president, according to…

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Twitter Meets with Conservatives for Input on Social Media Practices

by Evie Fordham   Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey hosted dinners to pick the brains of conservative leaders, including Grover Norquist, about criticism over content policing or lack thereof, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Norquist, founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, told TheWSJ he asked for help for two unnamed “prominent conservatives” who faced setbacks when placing pro-life ads on Twitter. Dorsey held outreach dinners, one in Washington, D.C., in June and another in New York, to get feedback from conservatives and others across the political spectrum, reported TheWSJ. Twitter came under fire from conservatives over summer 2018 when they accused the social media platform of “shadow banning” figures on the right, including Republican congressman. Twitter executives eventually admitted an algorithm meant to punish “bad-faith actors” had affected certain Republican congressmen’s visibility. Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is one of the members of Congress who said he was shadow banned. “When you search Matt Gaetz, you don’t get the account that is @MattGaetz which has 33,000 follower. You don’t get @RepMattGaetz, which has over 80,000 followers. Instead you get @NotMattGaetz, that’s what you get. I think @NotMattGaetz has fewer than 12 followers. But that’s what happens when you…

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Twitter Bans Misgendering Trans People but Allows Porn

by Grace Carr   Twitter banned the use of biological pronouns to refer to transgender persons, adding a clause prohibiting the practice to its policy regarding hateful conduct. The social media platform updated its policies on hateful conduct in October, but the move wasn’t largely noticed until Friday and Saturday when users began commenting on the change, Pink News reported. “Targeted harassment or expressing hate towards a person, group, or protected category,” is banned, according to Twitter’s Hateful Conduct Policy. The media platform also writes it is “committed to combating abuse motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance.” ” … targeted mis-gendering or dead naming of transgender individuals,” is also banned, according to the updated policy rules. Mis-gendering refers to using biological pronouns for a transgender person as opposed to pronouns that accord with their new gender identity. Dead naming refers to using the “dead name,” the name they used before transitioning, to describe or address a transgender person. Conservative speaker Ben Shapiro commented on the change. So Twitter is now banning people for stating the basic scientific fact that men are men and women are women, and that men cannot become women simply by thinking themselves so. Twitter vs. reality. https://t.co/Ur6ap8zNUN — Ben Shapiro…

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Begins Media Tour to Explain Why He Didn’t Censor Alex Jones . . . Yet

Alex Jones

by Kyle Perisic   Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey began his tour with media networks to explain Twitter’s speech policies after the backlash he faced from not banning Alex Jones like other tech giants. Dorsey is planning on speaking with Lester Holt on NBC’s “Nightly News” later in August and Brian Stelter on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Aug. 12. Stelter’s interview with Dorsey, the last CEO of a major platform not to ban Jones or InfoWars, has reportedly been in the works for several weeks, Axios reported Wednesday. Dorsey began his tour Wednesday with Fox News host Sean Hannity on his radio program, where he clarified the company’s decision not to ban Jones. “This is not easy,” Dorsey said, adding that Twitter hasn’t done a great job explaining the company’s use of the algorithms to enforce its policies. Dorsey also said Twitter hasn’t done a good job communicating what the company’s principles are or why certain accounts are banned to those users or to the media. “We have a lot more work to do there,” he said. Dorsey also insisted on Hannity’s radio show that Twitter does not shadowban users. Shadowbanning is using algorithms to make users or content harder to search for on social…

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Twitter CEO Caves To Liberal Backlash, Says He Was Wrong To Eat Chick-Fil-A

Jack Dorsey

by Peter Hasson   Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Sunday expressed regret over eating at Chick-fil-A, because of the chicken company’s CEO’s personal views on gay marriage. Dorsey tweeted a screenshot from his phone that showed a purchase he had made at Chick-fil-A using a mobile application. After a liberal backlash, however, Dorsey apologized for eating at the popular fast food restaurant.   At issue was Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy’s 2012 support for defining marriage as between a man and a woman, which he described as “the biblical definition of a family.” “Please delete this or follow up with how much free advertising you’re going to give GLAAD” Former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien was among those to call out Dorsey for eating at the self-described home of the original chicken sandwich. O’Brien indicated that Dorsey had sinned by publicly eating at Chick-fil-A during gay pride month. “You’re right,” Dorsey conceded. “Completely forgot about their background.” – – – Peter Hasson is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHasson.                        Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide…

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GOP Gubernatorial Hopeful Bill Lee Trolls Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey Over Chick-Fil-A Kerfuffle

Bill Lee

Franklin-area businessman and Republican candidate for governor Bill Lee showed his support for Chick-Fil-A while at the same time poking fun at Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey’s apology over the weekend for the “crime” of enjoying a chicken sandwich. Had a hankering for some @ChickfilA today. Cc: @jack pic.twitter.com/QwpBJS1t8w — Bill Lee (@BillLeeTN) June 11, 2018 At issue is a tweet by the social media giant’s founder proudly displaying his app-enabled purchase of a Chick-Fil-A meal. Reaction from the activist Left – especially from the LGBT quarters – was withering, and soonafter, Jack Dorsey capitulated, replying to former CNN anchor, “You’re right. Completely forgot about their background.” The ‘background’ Dorsey is referring to is a series of statements made by Chick-Fil-A’s Chief Operating Officer Dan Cathy from 2012 regarding his support of the biblical definition of marriage of one man and one woman, which triggered simultaneous boycotts by the left and BUY-cotts by the right. Ultimately, the fast-food stores’ sales rose an astonishing 12 percent, though the company’s owners stepped back from their support of conservative causes. “Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena,” the company said in a statement in…

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