Thread by @MikeBenzCyber

THREAD: I will be live-reacting to today's House Oversight Committee, titled "Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story" in the tweets below.

Follow along with the Congressional livestream here:

2. Table-setting: A preview of key issues for Committee to probe:

- AI censorship and the deployment of algorithms to stop citizens from talking *to each other* about the Hunter laptop story

- Gadde’s relationship w CISA & EIP

- Yoel’s wargame exercise with Aspen Insitute

3. Comer's opening remarks were excellent. Notable framing choices:

- Embraced "Virtual Town Square" as Internet free speech standard
- Championed Elon Musk as free speech ally, divided Twitter eras in to "Pre" and "Post" Musk
- Singled out Yoel Roth Aspen Institute exercise

4. But although well-intentioned, Comer's opening remarks did have some notable weaknesses and omissions. Raskin has capitalized on them.

By framing the issue as Twitter's suppression of a single NYPost URL, it minimizes scope of the scandal & misses NARRATIVE-level censorship.

5. My analysis of the opening tête-à-tête of Comer vs Raskin:

GOP could have preempted Raskin’s entire counterargument by simply broadening the scope of scandal to include narrative-level censorship and user-level censorship, rather than incident-level & what happened to NYPost

6. Fact-checking Raskin here. Raskin tapped into Department of Dirty Tricks card to conflate the hearing with Putin & Russiagate.

Said Russia spent "hundreds of millions."

Actually, the most even alleged in 2016 election by Russia was $100,000. That's one white-collar salary.

7. But you know who did get "hundreds of millions" for propaganda & censorship operations?

The State Dept's Global Engagement Center.

In 2017, GEC was allotted $120 million from DOD, setting off a turf war on how to spend these new censorship dollars

nytimes.com/2018/03/04/wor…

8. See more on GEC here:

https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1622768040948469760

9. And here:

https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1623146500959109120

10. And here:

https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1623203345744666625

11. And here:

https://twitter.com/FFO_Freedom/status/1593583134037123074

12. This how GEC, which is supposed to foreign-facing, launders censorship operations of US citizens through UK-based censorship entities like Atlantic Council DFR Lab, British disinfo labs and UK Foreign Office cut-outs to censor pro-Trump conservatives:

https://twitter.com/FFO_Freedom/status/1593800356475068416

13. MTG's speech was fiery and passionate, and that's needed. But also a big missed opportunity.

She should have asked **WHO AT DHS/CISA & EIP** Roth & Gadde consulted with before taking down her account. That gives a government nexus.

EIP consistently promoted MTG takedown:

14. For those new here, this is the role of EIP as the connecting body between DHS and Twitter censorship staff:

https://twitter.com/FFO_Freedom/status/1590529363942203392

15. We know EIP was given special access to Twitter censorship decisions, both through DHS "switchboard" run out of DHS cyber mission control (EI-ISAC) and the Twitter Files further showed a special access via the same government channels as DHS and FBI:

https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1608693910616027136

16. Oversight is getting into Burisma issue but aren't probing Gadde & Roth's relationship with EIP, anchored by the Atlantic Council.

The Atlantic Council was literally sponsored by Burisma.

And they got to dictate Twitter censorship decisions. What a scandal!!! ASK THEM!

17. @GOPoversight - This one is a lay-up. Twitter coordinated censorship with EIP, the formal private sector partner of DHS/CISA.

EIP had a literal BURISMA LOBBYIST as one of its four member institutions.

We need Gadde/Roth's on-the-record responses:

https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1606344961334444034

18. Burisma sponsored Atlantic Council fundraising events in Monaco, and they even signed a formal cooperation agreement in Jan 2017 to funnel deal flow to the exact company where Hunter Biden was on the board:

https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1606315001894948864

19. Can I make this any more clear?

A LITERAL BURISMA LOBBYIST WAS GIVEN INSIDE ACCESS, VIA THE US GOV'T, TO TWITTER CENSORSHIP DECISIONS.

WHAT ROLE DID THEY HAVE IN THE HUNTER BIDEN BURISMA STORY?

Get their response to that on the record! Let alone telling people about it.

20. Burisma sponsored Atlantic Council.

The Atlantic Council partnered with Twitter and DHS to censor Trump supporters ahead of 2020 election.

Here is Atlantic Council's Emerson Brooking calling Trump "THE DEATH STAR OF DISINFORMATION" while coordinating Twitter censorship

21. And yes, it was coercion. Atlantic Council's Emerson Brooking literally bragged on video that he + EIP threatened and jawboned Twitter into expanding censorship policies, using "extreme regulatory pressure" and threats of inducing crisis PR:

https://twitter.com/FFO_Freedom/status/1590562602266267649

22. The GOP Committee members mean well. But a big miss here is failure to emphasize gov't nexus. The First Amdt only applies to gov't.

The shame is gov't nexus is ALL OVER this story, but Committee members don't seem to have been briefed to know what to ask & how to frame.

23. For example, Trump (& millions of Trump supporters) was censored all thru Fall 2020 for criticizing mail-in ballots.

When did Twitter add the “delegitimization” censorship category banned criticizing mail-in ballots?

Sept 10, 2020. Just one week after EIP DHS partnered.

24. Twitter added this megacensorship category, which had a HUGE impact on the 2020 election, in consultation with CISA (DHS) and EIP (DHS’s censorship attack dog).

Why didn’t they ask Gadde & Roth about these coordination meetings? Request documents? Get it on record!

25. One purpose of hearings is, yes, a public airing and raising of public attention.

But a second & equally important purpose is extracting witness statements that can be used — later in time — to catch liars in a lie.

There was none of that 2nd aspect today. Big miss.