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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
@shellenberger
Feb 8, 2023 • 57 tweets • 21 min read • Read on X
TWITTER FILES: CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS

Twitter executives, including fmr FBI lawyer Jim Baker, who served as Twitter Deputy Counsel, are about to testify in front of the House Oversight Committee about their handling of the Hunter Biden laptop

Let's go

BACKGROUND

Rep. Jamie Raskin calls Twitter files “authentically trivial” and "silly," but doesn't address the coordinated effort by the intelligence community to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop, which was in FBI possession since Dec 2019, *before* its contents became public in Oct 2020. Image
Witnesses: Jim Baker, Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth, Anika Collier Navaroli Image
Baker claims he urged caution around the Hunter Biden laptop when in reality he led the charge within Twitter to reverse the finding by Twitter Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth that the NY Post story had *not* violated Twitter policies

Baker repeatedly and forcefully urged Roth and other Twitter executives to censor and thus discredit the NY Post story. After he did so, Roth reversed his decision, and censored the story. Image
Vijaye Gadde, the former general counsel of Twitter, claims that its censorship of the NY Post article was done in line with its policy against hacked materials, but she does not mention that Roth & his team found they were *not* from hacking.

There was extremely strong evidence the Hunter Biden emails were authentic and *not* the result of hacking. The @nypost included a picture of the receipt signed by Hunter Biden and an FBI subpoena proving it had taken possession of the laptop.

It would have taken a few minutes for Jim Baker, Yoel Roth, Vijaye Gadde to confirm whether the FBI subpoena was real or fake. None of them did so.
Yoel Roth, like Vijaye, opens his statement describing content moderation decisions that are not particularly controversial, such as against hate speech. This has been a strategy from many Twitter execs & defenders, including regime media.

The real issue here is disinformation.
"Twitter made a mistake," says Roth, about Twitter's censorship of the NY Post story about the laptop. "I've been clear that in my judgment at the time, Twitter should not have taken action to block the NY Post's reporting." Image
Roth says that Twitter's mistake was due to his memory of Russia's hack & leak of DNC emails in 2016.

He fails to mention that he himself said FBI repeatedly primed him in 2020 to dismiss reports of the laptop as another Russian disinfo operation.

The Democrats put forward a former Twitter exec. as a witness who says, "I was not involved in the decision around Hunter Biden's laptop," which is the main topic of this hearing. She then changes the topic to January 6. Image
.@RepAndyBiggsAZ asks Roth, "Were there experts... you consulted between 9 am and 10:15 am," when Roth reversed his decision.

Roth says, "We were following this discussion as it unfolded on Twitter... and that informed Twitter's judgement"

No mention of Baker.
The witness Anika Collier Navaroli talks about how alarmed she was when Trump called his tweets "little missiles" and argues that Twitter didn't censor enough in advance of January 6.
Roth says he regrets his tweet saying there were "ACTUAL NAZIS IN THE WHITE HOUSE" and that he doesn't think all conservatives are Nazis Image
Gadde says that Hunter Biden never told Twitter that he was a victim of a hack

Gadde says she did not contact Biden's lawyer to ask if the laptop was authentic Image
Baker says that he did not talk to his FBI contacts about the Hunter Biden laptop on October 14, the day the NY Post published its article.

We know that at 3:38 pm that day, Baker arranged a phone call with the General Counsel of the FBI.

Roth says that he has been harassed since leaving Twitter, which is something that I and every other journalist who covered the Twitter Files have condemned publicly and repeatedly.

Nobody should be subjected to the harassment that Yoel Roth was subjected to.
Roth confirms that he was warned in meetings with intelligence agencies and other social media companies that there could be a hack and leak operation involving Hunter Biden, but adds that the Hunter Biden info may have come from another social media firm

Roth does not say which firm that was, but it is notable that when Joe Rogan asked Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg about the Hunter Biden laptop, Zuckerberg said his staff was warned by FBI of a coming Russian hack and dump operation

Roth says FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan said publicly that the documents Chan sent to Roth on the evening of Oct 13 did not relate to the Hunter Biden laptop.

Roth says, "The company made a decision that it did violate company policy. It wasn't my personal judgment at the time that it did. But the decision was communicated to me by my direct supervisor, and ultimately I didn't disagree with it enough to object to it." Image
Roth has confirmed for the first time that he was overruled by his boss, Del Harvey, in censoring the laptop.
Rep. @AOC calls the Hunter Biden laptop "disinformation," which is bizarre. No serious person today denies that the Hunter Biden laptop is real. Multiple news media companies have confirmed that it is real and wasn't tampered with.

cbsnews.com/news/hunter-bi…
Rep. Fry asks Roth about FBI constantly emailing Twitter about foreign interference.

Roth calls the FBI reports "a bit of mixed bag"

Roth says he wouldn't describe FBI as pressuring Twitter, but on Jan 2, 2020 a Twitter exec complained of "sustained (If uncoordinated) effort by the IC [intelligence community] to push us to share more info & change our API policies."

And that same month, Roth resisted FBI efforts to get Twitter to share data outside of the normal search warrant process.

Rep. Dan Goldman claims the first paragraph in the Oct 14 NY Post was "completely false" bc the Ukrainian prosecutor was corrupt, but the NY Post didn't claim he wasn't corrupt, only that Biden pressured the government to fire him.

Not clear what Goldman's talking about Image
Gadde says, "I ultimately approved that decision" to censor the laptop.
.@Jim_Jordan asks Baker if talked to any of the 51 former CIA Directors and other intelligence community officials who claimed the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be Russian disinformation
Baker says, "I've talked to those people in the course of my career."
Baker: "I don't recall discussing that publication that they did about the Hunter Biden laptop with any of those people."
Rep. @AOC says the "information coming out of the NY Post" was "disinformation," which is bizarre. She seems to be saying that the laptop is not authentic, which is not something any mainstream journalist or policymaker believes anymore.
A committee member asks Gadde, "How is visibility filtering any different from shadow banning?"

Gadde: "I believe there are different definitions of shadowbanning... At that time I specifically defined shadow banning to mean something different than visibility filtering."
But, as @bariweiss reported last December, "What many people call 'shadow banning,' Twitter executives and employees call 'Visibility Filtering' or 'VF.' Multiple high-level sources confirmed its meaning."

Gadde misrepresented what Twitter was doing.

Roth confirms to Rep. @RepTimBurchett that Twitter neither de-platformed Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei nor removed his Tweet calling Israel "a malignant cancerous tumor... that has to be removed and eradicated"

Image
As background, @bariweiss documented widespread "incitement to violence" and hate speech by major political figures that Twitter did nothing about, even as it moved to de-platform a sitting president.

A committee member asks Roth if the Russian trolls were more on Trump's or Biden's side and Roth says, "We saw Russian operatives playing both sides and often playing them against each other... manufacturing drama."
.@RepBeccaB stresses that the Biden campaign did not demand Twitter censor the Hunter Biden laptop, but that's never been the issue.

The issue is that FBI & intel community discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

The implication of Rep. Balint is that all of this is a conspiracy theory, but when we asked former top CIA media analyst, "So you think the FBI could have been 'pre-bunking' the laptop?" he said, "I don’t think there’s any other possibility."

public.substack.com/p/former-top-c… Image
Rep. Gary Palmer asks how the former Twitter executives justified removing Trump while leaving on Twitter Iran's Ayatollah, who called for the destruction of Israel.

"You understand how hypocritical this is, right?" says Palmer.

None offer a defense of that decision.
In Twitter Files Part 4, I documented how, on January 7, senior Twitter execs created justifications to ban Trump and sought to change policy for Trump alone, distinct from other political leaders

In Twitter Files Part 5, @bariweiss reported that Twitter staff unanimously concluded that Trump had *not* violated Twitter’s policies.

“I think we’d have a hard time saying this is incitement."

“Don’t see the incitement angle here.”

Anika Navaroli, who is also testifying, agreed, saying, "I also am not seeing clear or coded incitement in the DJT tweet... Safety has assessed the DJT Tweet above and determined that there is no violation of our policies at this time.”

"Navaroli... testified... that the ban came only after Twitter execs had for months rebuffed her calls for stronger action against Trump’s account" — @drewharwell @washingtonpost

washingtonpost.com/technology/202…
But Navaroli, as a Twitter executive, expressed precisely the opposite, stressing that Trump had not, in fact, violated Twitter policies

.@RepArmstrongND notes that, after intense FBI warnings of Russian disinformation, Twitter execs. did not seek to find out if the Hunter Biden laptop the result of hacking.

Instead, they reversed their own evaluation.

Worth watching:
.@RepPatFallon notes that Joe Biden repeatedly denied, while campaigning for president, ever talking to his son, Hunter, about his business dealings and that the Oct 14 NY Post article about the Hunter Biden laptop disproved that.

nypost.com/2020/10/14/ema…
.@RepDanGoldman stresses that people couldn't confirm the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop right away, but a) they could have and b) Roth & his team had already determined there was no evidence it was from hacking before they were overruled by Baker, Gadde, and Harvey
.@Jim_Jordan responds to Goldman:

"You know who knew the laptop was real? The FBI! Maybe they had it for a year and just said, 'You know what? We're gonna put it on the shelf and we're not going to look at it. But if anyone knew it was real, it's them."
Back to shadow-banning

Roth: "It would not surprise me to know that visibility filtering labels had been applied to the accounts of elected officials."

Jordan: "But the user doesn't know?"

Roth: "It was not Twitter's practice to notify users."
Rep @laurenboebert notes that Twitter applied "an aggressive visibility filter" on January 9, 2021, for 90 days, after she tweeted what she says was a joke: "Hillary must be pissed it took the DNC until 2020 to successfully rig an election." Image
@RepLuna accuses Twitter executives of working with the intelligence community and NGOs through the Jira cloud server system to censor tweets and thus violate the First Amendment.
Rep. @ChuckEdwards4NC asks Roth about his participation in an Aspen Institute zoom meeting in June 2020 with reporters and other social media execs. to plan how *not* to cover a potential Russian "hack & leak" relating to Hunter Biden

Rep. Edwards: "Why was Hunter Biden chosen as the subject of this scenario? Just weeks before the October 14th, 2020 publication of the first Hunter Biden story?"

Roth: "I don't know."
.@RepScottPerry : "Do you find it highly coincidental that it actually happened and it was Hunter Biden at all?"

Roth: "My statement does not suggest the FBI told me it would involve Hunter Biden... I think there is a coincidence there and I really can't speak as to how"

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More from @shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
May 1
@JamesOKeefeIII @CIA @NSAGov Multiple credible sources told us that the CIA asked foreign allies to spy on 26 Trump associates:

@JamesOKeefeIII @CIA @NSAGov Credible sources say the U.S. government is hiding a binder of documents because they incriminate the intelligence community for illegal spying and election interference:

@JamesOKeefeIII @CIA @NSAGov Sources say the CIA "cooked the intelligence" to hide that Vladamir Putin wanted Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, as president:

Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
May 1
Most people think they understand the meaning of free speech but recent events show that many don’t. People have the right to say hateful things. Words on their own are not violence. The test of incitement to violence is its immediacy. Congress should not expand the definition of anti-Semitism. And freedom of speech doesn’t include the freedom to occupy buildings, block free movement, or camp illegally.Image
You’re Only For Free Speech If You Defend It For People You Hate

We should protect people physically, not emotionally

by @galexybrane & @shellenberger
A Israel supporter (left) shouts slogans against Pro-Palestinian demonstrators as they hold a protests outside Columbia University on February 2, 2024 in New York City. A pro-Palestinian demonstrator (right) shouts slogans as he marches on January 15, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Eduardo MunozAlvarez/VIEWpress) (Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/VIEWpress)

Pro-Palestine protests on college campuses around the country have inflamed debates about free speech and antisemitism. Some Republicans and Democrats claim that government oversight and censorship of hate speech is needed to address these protests. Representatives Richie Torres (D-NY) and Mike Lawler (R-NY), for example, have introduced the COLUMBIA Act, which will create “antisemitism monitors” at select universities.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who in 2019 signed a bill to guarantee freedom of speech in Texas universities, suggested that protesters should be arrested for their views. “These protesters belong in jail,” he wrote about students at the University of Texas Austin. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas. Period.”

And most recently, the House Rules Committee advanced the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023, a bipartisan bill to expand the definition of antisemitism in Title VI federal anti-discrimination law. The bill refers to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which includes criticism of Israel, such as characterizing the state of Israel as a racist endeavor, or applying double standards to Israel’s conduct. Because all schools that receive federal funds must comply with Title VI, the bill would lead to greater censorship of speech on campus.

All of these efforts are violations of freedom of speech and we condemn them unreservedly. It’s once again time to remind ourselves and our fellow citizens that the test of our commitment to free speech is when we demand its protection for our enemies and for speech we hate, not for our friends and for speech we like.

To be sure, there have been hateful incidents at protests. Outside Columbia University’s gates, for instance, pro-Palestine protesters shouted “Go back to Poland!” at demonstrators holding Israeli flags. Multiple incidents of harassment have been reported on both sides. A leader of Columbia’s protest said on a livestream in January that Zionists “don’t deserve to live,” adding, “I feel very comfortable, very comfortable, calling for these people to die.”

Columbia students also pushed pro-Israel Jewish students out of their Gaza solidarity encampment on the campus lawn. In a similar incident, pro-Palestine protesters prevented a pro-Israel Jewish student at UCLA from accessing his route to class.

In these instances and others, protesters infringed on the rights of fellow tuition-paying students. University rules place limits on the time, place, and manner of protests. Constructing encampments, blocking parts of campus, and occupying buildings are clear violations of these rules and are not forms of protected speech.

Yet the conduct of some young protesters in no way requires placing greater restrictions on political speech for all students and infringing on academic freedom. Nor does it justify more government interventions to combat hate speech, expansion of counterproductive campus “safetyism,” and excessive use of police force on college campuses.

We know that readers may be displeased and disappointed that we are not unequivocally supporting one side of the Israel-Palestine debate and are instead presenting criticisms of both overreaching pro-Israel politicians and radical pro-Palestine protesters. But our position is unchanged from what it was last year: we reject the far left’s ideological extremism and its endorsement of Hamas’ actions on October 7. At the same time, we share the left’s concerns about civilian deaths in Gaza, violations of the Geneva Conventions, Israel’s political leadership, and potential escalation to a wider conflict.

We believe there is currently a great deal of confusion and hypocrisy around free speech on both sides of this debate. Some on the right who once claimed to believe in absolute free speech are now calling for a crackdown on “hate speech.” Meanwhile, many on the left, who have endorsed “cancel culture” and basically all censorship of their opponents since 2016, are now crying “Free speech!” without recognizing or admitting to how their own activities have set a terrible precedent.

Yet the line between speech and unlawful conduct is quite clear. Blocking traffic, taking over buildings, and constructing encampments are acts of force, and are not protected by the First Amendment. A central purpose of civil disobedience historically has been to provoke arrest in order to bring awareness to a cause, and students should know that arrest is a possible outcome of civil disobedience. While we believe that universities must aim to protect the right to protest as much as possible, encampments can disrupt learning and free movement around campus, and it is at universities’ discretion to suspend and expel students or call police to clear encampments.

The line between political speech and harassment or incitement to violence is also almost always clear...Image
Please subscribe now to support our defense of freedom of speech for all, and to read the rest of the article!

Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 24
O Procurador-Geral do Brasil acaba de me acusar de um "provável" crime por publicar "Twitter Files - Brasil". É uma mentira monstruosa. Presidente @LulaOficial está me perseguindo porque expus a censura ilegal do governo. Vou lutar e vencer.

gov.br/agu/pt-br/comu…
O governo do @LulaOficial está espalhando desinformação e teorias conspiratórias ridículas e fáceis de desmascarar, como eu fiz aqui:

Este documento é uma vergonha nacional.

Este documento revela Lula como igual a Castro.Image
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Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 24
Brazil's Attorney General just accused me of a "probable" crime for publishing "Twitter Files - Brazil." It's a monstrous lie. President @LulaOficial is persecuting me because I exposed the government's illegal censorship. I will fight back, and win.

gov.br/agu/pt-br/comu…
The @LulaOficial is spreading disinformation and ridiculous conspiracy theories that are easy to debunk, as I did here.

This document is a national embarrassment.

This document exposes Lula as Castro's equal.Image
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Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 20
Brazilian Judge Pushes Nationalist Conspiracy Theory To Weaponize Federal Police Against Defenders Of Free Speech

Brazil’s Federal Police discuss me in new report commissioned by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes

Yesterday, a Brazilian Supreme Court Justice, who is also the President of the Superior Electoral Commission, lashed out angrily at X owner Elon Musk. At an event heavily promoted by Globo News, Alexandre de Moraes claimed that Musk is part of a vast extremist conspiracy to undermine Brazil’s sovereignty and democracy. He claimed that Musk was an “irresponsible mercantilist” motivated solely by profits who had “united” with “extremist Brazilian politicians.”

But there is no evidence of any conspiracy. Musk did not know I would publish the Twitter Files Brazil. Nor did the Brazilian politicians who reacted to them. And many of the politicians and journalists who de Moraes is demonizing as “extremist” are advocates of freedom of speech, including the right to criticize de Moraes.

It’s true that some of the people who de Moraes is censoring have urged a military intervention and have made unsubstantiated claims about elections and Covid. I do not agree with many of the statements made by the people whom de Moraes has censored.

But freedom of speech means nothing if it does not protect people and ideas you disagree with. If we aren’t going to allow people to criticize democracy, elections, and vaccines, how will we ever know if they are bad? If people are spreading false information about democracy, elections, and vaccines, the best way to deal with the false information is with accurate information, not censorship.

The real extremist spreading disinformation here is de Moraes. If Musk were solely motivated by money, then he would not have stood up to de Moraes, which resulted in the Brazilian government halting all advertising on X, the resignation of X’s top lawyer in Brazil, who feared for his safety, and may result in de Moraes shutting down X in Brazil.

He is not simply demanding that social media platforms censor specific content by controversial journalists and politicians. He is demanding that all social media platforms ban them for life. He often does so through secret hearings without the right of appeal.

In fact, it’s all much worse than that. You can’t be a politician or journalist if you can’t communicate on social media. And so de Moraes is not just violating the Brazilian constitution’s protections of free speech, he is also attacking the freedom of the press, destroying careers, and interfering in elections.

De Moraes has acted unilaterally to invent entirely new laws. He is thus interfering and taking over the role of Congress and of the president. That means he is behaving like a dictator.

And now de Moraes has weaponized the Federal Police, including against me, for publishing the Twitter Files in Brazil. The Federal Police delivered two reports to de Moraes, one on April 18 and the other on April 19. The reports consist of a gigantic conspiracy theory, suggesting connections and relationships that simply do not exist.

The reports single me out and suggest it is somehow suspicious that I only have paid for one subscription on X, which is to Elon Musk. But there is nothing suspicious about this. I am paying Musk, not the other way around. And, as the Police report notes, Musk takes a percentage of the revenue of the people who subscribe to my content on X.

And the reports claim that people who de Moraes had demanded be censored had gained limited access to communicate on X, in particular through X’s Spaces, which allows for live conversation.

In other words, de Moraes is totally obsessed with silencing his enemies. It’s not enough for X to have blocked profiles. He also doesn’t want them to be able to use their voice.

It helps that the Brazilian government directly pays the Brazilian news media. The new Lula government increased government funding by 60% for Globo alone. Globo is the biggest media in Brazil. It has been demanding more censorship and running propaganda for de Moraes.

De Moraes is a brutish authoritarian. His censorship is as bad as the censorship imposed by Brazil’s military dictators. He is seeking, as a judge, to eliminate particularly politicians and journalists from public life.

This is hardly the first time de Moraes has weaponized the Federal Police. And in calling Elon Musk a foreign mercantilist, de Moraes is using the exact same kind of nationalist rhetoric that he has attacked his enemies for using.

Why does Moraes have so much power? In Brazil, people told me it was because de Moraes controls so many court cases involving rich and powerful people, including politicians and other judges.

The solution is for Brazil’s Congress to open an investigation, known as a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI). A CPI can evaluate judicial abuses of power, and that is obviously what is happening here. Under a CPI, Brazil’s Congress could gain access to communications between police and judges or anyone else.

A CPI could also hear from the victims of censorship. It could bring light to thousands of cases under secrecy. And it could discover how social media platforms were compelled to obey or collaborate with the regime.

Musk has taken extraordinary and historic actions to protect free speech. So, too has the US Congress. Now it’s time for Brazil’s Congress to act against the anti-democratic extremism of de Moraes. It must do so before the extremist de Moraes starts arresting his political enemies and shuts down X, and thus free speech, in Brazil.
Aqui está a mesma coisa em português para todos os brasileiros que amam a liberdade e odeiam a tirania

Here are the pages from the creepy Federal Police report, which pushes a bonkers conspiracy theory... My favorite part is the screenshot of my profile page, which includes the banner, "Defund the Thought Police." Oh the irony! 😂Image
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Read 4 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 18
Brazil’s high court demanded that Twitter censor, under threat of penalty of nearly US$20,000/day, a state legislator who shared ACCURATE and PUBLIC information.

This is just one case among dozens or hundreds of ILLEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL censorship demanded of politicians & journalists.
The Brazilian high court and electoral court began by demanding censorship of specific content and then segued into demanding that people — including elected leaders — be entirely BANNED from all social media.

This is madness and psychopathology institutionalized at the highest level of government.
The court demanded that a state lawmaker be BANNED for posting this publicly available event announcement.

And, at first, the charges against him were kept secret!
Read 16 tweets

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