FBI Paid Twitter $3M for “Processing Requests” - Daniel Greenfield

 

by Daniel Greenfield

“We have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!”

 

So far the TwitterFiles and whistleblower reports revealed massive security failures inside Twitter. On the other hand, Twitter had hired a dozen ex-FBIers and was constantly engaging with the FBI.

Yet, curiously, the FBI never seemed to be focused on getting Twitter to secure its systems. Instead, the FBI wanted information and was providing millions in compensation.

The FBI reimbursed Twitter to the tune of more than $3 million as it pushed the social media company to ban accounts and target so-called “foreign influence” operations, the latest installment of the “Twitter Files” revealed on Monday.

In an email dated Feb. 10, 2021, an unidentified Twitter employee told then-deputy general counsel Jim Baker and then-general counsel Sean Edgett that “we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!”

Baker was another FBI vet.

$3 million in a company the size of Twitter wasn’t massive, but it was enough to incentivize a higher degree of compliance. When the FBI calls Bob and demands information, it isn’t cutting million-dollar checks.

The FBI wanted Twitter to work with it. And by the FBI, I mean the DOJ and Obama left-behinders who were looking to build a case or, in the case of Hunter Biden an anti-case, and needed materials to do it with. Specifically, there needed to be a foreign threat justifying censorship and allegations of election tampering depending on the outcome of the election. The election tampering allegations weren’t needed this time around, but censorship was still urgently needed to stop the Hunter Biden laptop story.

The striking thing was how a combination of carrot and stick, pressure, bribes, personnel transfer and flattery compromised a fairly major social media platform. But it also helped that the platform wanted to be compromised.

Twitter was a famous, but compared to Big Tech, small company that was amateurishly run and badly mismanaged. The FBI didn’t focus on closing its security holes, but seemingly on creating new ones.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fbi-paid-twitter-3m-for-processing-requests/

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