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Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
@shellenberger
May 16, 2023 • 28 tweets • 11 min read • Read on X
TWITTER FILES: CENSORSHIP BY TURKISH GOVERNMENT

— Twitter sought compliance with Turkey’s censorship demands long before @elonmusk bought the company

— Twitter transparency surpasses that of @Google & @Meta

— Musk’s harshest critics defend him twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Critics of Twitter are roasting @elonmusk for agreeing to the censorship demands of the Turkish government days before last Sunday’s election.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said Musk should have done what “What Wikipedia did: we stood strong for our principles and fought to the Supreme Court of Turkey and won. This is what it means to treat freedom of expression as a principle rather than a slogan.” Image
But Twitter did exactly that. “We will continue to object in court,” Twitter explained yesterday, “as we have done with all requests, but no further legal action was possible before the start of voting."

"Five court orders have been issued against Twitter regarding these actions and we have already objected to four of them," it wrote. "While one of our objections has been rejected, three of them are still under review. We are filing our objections to the fifth order tomorrow.” Image
Critics say that Musk should have called the government’s bluff and let the government shut off Twitter entirely. I am sympathetic to this view since I think it would be a strong show of force at a time when governments worldwide are cracking down on freedom of speech.
At the same time, Twitter under Musk has been more transparent than any other Internet company, including Twitter pre-Musk, in announcing the government’s censorship.
Yesterday, Twitter released the Turkish court orders and the letter from the government regulator, demanding censorship.

Neither Google, Facebook, or any other Internet company has done so, despite having complied with Turkish censorship demands for at least two years and perhaps longer.
As such, while all of the attention over the last few days has been on Twitter, other Internet companies are being let off the hook.
It wasn't always this way. In 2021, ProPublica reported, “Sheryl Sandberg and Top Facebook Execs Silenced an Enemy of Turkey to Prevent a Hit to the Company’s Business.”

propublica.org/article/sheryl…
And Turkey has cracked down significantly since Wikipedia’s lawsuit in 2019.

In an October 7, 2022, email describing Turkey’s new law, a Twitter executive complained, “Google has been disengaged and intends to comply.” Image
Meta “has been proactive at the highest levels in its efforts to change/delay/derail the law.... However, if the law is passed and their businesses are materially challenged by sanctions, I would expect both companies [Meta + Tik Tok] to find compliance solutions” Image
Moreover, even Musk hater @CaseyNewton concluded in early 2021, based on what had happened in India as well as Turkey, that “whether a social network complies with government requests or challenges them, in the end it will eventually be brought to heel.” ImageImage
And yesterday, @CaseyNewton & @ZoeSchiffer wrote, “On this point [relating to Turkey’s censorship], we can be sympathetic to Musk.... in 2021, before Musk bought the company, Twitter restricted access to various high-profile accounts at the behest of the Indian government." ImageImage
"The rationale for these moves is fairly straightforward: it’s typically better for the cause of speech to have at least some content available," they wrote. "Pakistan banned YouTube outright from 2012 to 2016; when the government relented and allowed it to return, it was largely… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
Indeed, the Twitter Files show that Twitter was in the process of complying with Turkey’s censorship law long before Musk bought the company.
On June 14, 2021, Twitter’s then-deputy legal counsel, Jim Baker, emailed another senior legal executive to say, “we need to: (1) agree to comply (as much as possible) with the 48-hour requirement (which I understand people think is achievable); and (2) agree to cobble together… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
That same month, Twitter's law firm, Shearman and Sterling, sent over a report which described Twitter’s options at length. “The Turkish Government has intermittently blocked access to Twitter, notably during elections and in the wake of arrests of opposition politicians,” noted… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
Shearman didn’t recommend that Twitter continue to pursue the matter in Turkish courts, perhaps because Turkey’s National Assembly passed a new law in reaction to Wikipedia’s Supreme Court victory in early 2020.

“A new social media law adopted in 2020, ‘Law No. 5651’, obliges… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Instead, Shearman recommended Twitter consider international arbitration proceedings, filing a case with the European Court for Human Rights, going to the World Trade Organization, or going to the United Nations.
In August 2021, a Twitter executive emailed Vijaya Gadde, Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust at Twitter, about the legislation the National Assembly would pass in 2022. “President Erdogan has made several statements indicating strong support for more prohibitive social media… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
The executive said Turkey was inspired by the censorship regime of the German government. “The Turkish government says it has formulated the plans for this legislation by conducting an analysis of laws enacted in other countries, particularly Germany’s NetzDG.”
By October 2022, Twitter executives discussed the company’s limited remaining options. “We've been told that the law will go into effect on April 1. The timing of the law is deliberate, as it's widely regarded as a means for the government to exert more control over the public… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Image
Once again, Facebook caved. "Meta and TikTok both say that they can't see a way to comply with some of the law's requirements, particularly around fully authorised local (Turkish citizen) representation, as they share our concerns around employee safety. However, their views may… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
On November 23, 2022, a Twitter executive wrote an email to senior Twitter executives Senior Legal Counsel for Turkey laying out options. The first two were for complying and the latter proposed taking a legal route. Image
It appears that Twitter under Musk chose the legal route that his critics, including Wikipedia’s Wales, urged. It didn’t work:

What's happening in Turkey must be considered in light of the broader global crackdown, including in Europe.

Tomorrow we will describe the implications of what’s happening in Turkey, Europe, and around the world for people who care about freedom of speech.

/END

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More from @shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 28
Renewables don't risk blackouts, said the media. But they did and they do. The physics are simple. And now, as blackouts in Spain strand people in elevators, jam traffic, and ground flights, it's clear that too little "inertia" due to excess solar resulted in system collapse. Image
Six days ago, the media celebrated a significant milestone: Spain’s national grid operated entirely on renewable energy for the first time during a weekday.

At 12:35 pm today local time, the lights went out across Spain and Portugal, and parts of France. Although power was quickly restored in France, it could take a week to fully restore power in Spain and Portugal.
In an instant, the electric hum of modern life — trains, hospitals, airports, phones, traffic lights, cash registers — fell silent. Tens of millions of people instantly plunged into chaos, confusion, and darkness. People got stuck in elevators. Subways stopped between stations. Gas stations couldn’t pump fuel. Grocery stores couldn’t process payments. Air traffic controllers scrambled as systems failed and planes were diverted. In hospitals, backup generators sputtered on, but in many cases could not meet full demand.
It was one of the largest peacetime blackouts Europe has ever seen. And it was not random. It was not an unforeseeable event. It was the exact failure that many of ushave been, repeatedly, warning lawmakers about for years — warnings that Europe’s political leaders systematically chose to ignore.

While Portugal’s grid operator REN initially blamed the mass blackout on “extreme temperature variations” and a “rare atmospheric phenomenon,” and while some media repeated that framing, the reality is more serious. Weather may have triggered the event, but it was not the cause of the system’s collapse.
Spain’s national grid operator, Red Eléctrica, revealed that the immediate cause of the blackout was a “very strong oscillation in the electrical network” that forced Spain’s grid to disconnect from the broader European system, leading to the collapse of the Iberian Peninsula’s power supply at 12:38 p.m.

“No one has ever attempted a black start on a grid that relies so heavily on renewables as Iberia,” noted @JKempEnergy . “The limited number of thermal generators will make it more challenging to re-establish momentum and frequency control.”

In a traditional power grid dominated by heavy spinning machines — coal plants, gas turbines, nuclear reactors — small disturbances, even from severe weather, are absorbed and smoothed out by the sheer physical inertia of the system. The heavy rotating mass of the generators acts like a shock absorber, resisting rapid changes in frequency and stabilizing the grid.
But in an electricity system dominated by solar panels, wind turbines, and inverters, there is almost no physical inertia. Solar panels produce no mechanical rotation. Most modern wind turbines are electronically decoupled from the grid and provide little stabilizing force. Inverter-based systems, which dominate modern renewable energy grids, are precise but delicate. They follow the frequency of the grid rather than resisting sudden changes....

Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning investigative reporting and to read the rest of the article!

x.com/shellenberger/…Image
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Louder for the people in the back: Weather may have triggered the event, but it was not and cannot be the cause of the system’s collapse.

If you are an electric grid operator blaming the weather for your blackout, you should be fired!

FULL STORY HERE

Read 7 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 8
Bravo to the Supreme Court for upholding the right of the accused under Alien Enemies Act to due process. "For all the rhetoric... today’s order & per curiam confirm... detainees... are entitled to... an opportunity to challenge their removal. The only question is which court..." Image
The Court adds, "Although judicial review under the AEA is limited, we have held that an individual subject to detention and removal under that statute is entitled to ‘judicial review’ ... as well as whether he or she 'is in fact an alien enemy fourteen years of age or older.'" Image
Kavanagh: "...all nine Members of the Court agree that judicial review is available. The only question is where that judicial review should occur." Image
Read 9 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 7
Trump is losing support from Republican “financiers”, say the media. First, did it ever cross their mind that Wall Street may not represent the American interest? Of course not. Second, @FT irresponsibly omitted the small detail that Ken Langone’s @HomeDepot is long Vietnam. Image
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Perhaps the most entertaining part of the Trump tariffs is how they have brought together financiers and @BernieSanders , thus exposing just how full of baloney his whole “oligarchy” shtick is. Image
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@BernieSanders Why are we taxpayers funding this dishonest partisan garbage?

Not a single mainstream media outlet has acknowledged that Bernie is with the oligarchs. And that’s fine but don’t make pay to just repeat their propaganda. Image
Read 6 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 1
One FBI employee involved in the cover-up of the Hunter Biden laptop was Bradley Benavides (ctr-intel div). Weeks earlier he played key role in an apparent FBI scheme to smear @SenRonJohnson & @ChuckGrassley — who were investigating Hunter — as tools of Putin. Sinister.Image
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According to @SenRonJohnson & @ChuckGrassley , Benavides and a colleague on August 6, 2020 provided "an unnecessary briefing on behalf of the FBI and Intelligence Community on matters purportedly related to the senators’ investigation into Hunter Biden."

ronjohnson.senate.gov/2022/8/sens-jo…
Why would Benavides & FBI give an unnecessary briefing? Probably so they could then leak information about the briefing to The Washington Post.

Keep in mind this was 2.5 months before NY Post story.

This appears to be a key part of the FBI's disinformation operation.Image
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Read 17 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Apr 1
The FBI said it didn't interfere in the 2020 election, but it did. It tricked Twitter & Facebook into censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story. Now, newly released chat messages show the FBI issued a "gag order" after an employee accidentally confirmed the laptop's authenticity. Image
This is a CatherineHerridgeReports @C__Herridge / Public Investigation

In 2024, an FBI official admitted to House investigators that an FBI employee had inadvertently confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop to Twitter on a conference call the morning of October 14, 2020, the day the New York Post published a story about it.

“I recall that when the question came up, an intelligence analyst assigned to the Criminal Investigative Division said something to the effect of, ‘Yes, the laptop is real’,” testified the then-Russia Unit Chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force in a closed door transcribed interview.

“I believe it was an (Office of General Counsel) attorney assigned to the (Foreign Influence Task Force) stepped in and said, ‘We will not comment further on this topic.’”

For the first time, and with a change of administration, the FBI has now turned over to GOP House investigators the internal chat messages that show Bureau leadership actively silenced its employees.

The FBI, which had a special task force to counter foreign election interference, could have set the record straight by confirming the laptop was real and the subject of an ongoing criminal probe. Instead, FBI leadership allowed the false narrative about the laptop to gain momentum.

The FBI provided the chat messages to congressional investigators with heavy redactions.

Some of the redactions on the chats are marked “OGC AGC,” which appears to mean that they were made by the FBI’s Office of General Counsel and Associate General Counsel.

An individual whose name is blacked out, tells Elvis M. Chan, the San Francisco-based FBI special agent tasked with interacting with social media companies, there was a “gag order” on discussion of Hunter Biden’s laptop. In a separate exchange, Chan is told “official response no commen(t).”
In the chat, the FBI officials showed awareness that the laptop may have contained evidence of criminal activity.

Asked Chan, “actually what kind of case is the laptop thing? corruption? campaign financing?”

Another FBI employee responds, “CLOSE HOLD —” after which the response is redacted.

To which Chan responds, “oh crap” appearing to underscore the serious nature of the probe, which included felony tax charges. Chan adds, “ok. It ends here”.

In the same conversation, Chan is asked if “Anyone discussing that NYPost article on the Biden’s?” Chan responds, “yes we are. c d confirmed an active investigation. No further comment.” “C D” is likely shorthand for the FBI’s Criminal Division.

Said another FBI employee, whose name was redacted by the Bureau, “please do not discuss biden matter.”
We asked for a response from the bureau and the FBI employees identified in the chat messages. An FBI spokesman declined to comment.

According to the IRS whistleblowers, DOJ prosecutors blocked standard investigative protocols that might have led to Joe Biden ahead of the presidential campaign.

“There were a lot of overt investigative steps that we were not allowed to take because we had an upcoming election,” said Joseph Ziegler, the IRS case agent on the Hunter Biden probe.. “And it related to the president's son. So not even the candidate.”

The FBI chat is cryptic and the heavy redactions make it difficult to discern context. For example, an employee says to Chan that “[redacted] has a gag order from [redacted]... got checked by [redacted] had to backtrack - sorry!”
Another cryptic exchange came from Laura Dehmlow, the FBI employee who told House investigators that an FBI employee had accidentally confirmed that the laptop was real. “WTF(redacted) No COMMENT.”

An employee whose name is also withheld wrote, “nope, just a domestic hit job, yay” to which Dehmlow responded, “Yup.”

The exchange may be referring to the FBI’s knowledge that the laptop was authentic and not a foreign “hack and leak” or “Russian information operation,” as 51 former senior intelligence officials alleged at the time.

The IRS whistleblowers said there was no basis for the statement from the former intelligence officials....
Please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning reporting and to read the rest of this article!

x.com/shellenberger/…Image
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The Twitter Files revealed that the FBI ran a sophisticated info operation aimed at convincing journalists and social media companies that the Hunter Biden laptop, which it had possessed since 2019, was the result of a Russian "hack and leak" operation.

Read 5 tweets
Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Mar 31
The Right is a threat to democracy, the media says. But it isn’t. It’s winning elections and respecting constituitons. It’s the Left that is undermining democracy. It tried to jail Trump, is about to jail Bolsonaro, and just sentenced Le Pen to prison. This is a five alarm fire. Image
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And when the Left can’t incarcerate a presidential candidate, it simply prevents them from running, for no good reason, and in flagrant violation of the law, as the totalitarian creeps just did in Romania. Image
The reason the court convicted @MLP_officielis because she is 10 points ahead of her nearest rival in the presidential race. Image
Read 6 tweets

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