Thread by @mtaibbi

1. TWITTER FILES EXTRA:
BIG BROTHER IS FLAGGING YOU
New House report and previously unpublished Twitter Files show: Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership was a front for government censorship

2. On Monday, @Jim_Jordan's Weaponization of Government Subcommittee released a damning report on the “Weaponization of Disinformation.” Packed with subpoenaed documents, it focused on Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership: judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subs…

3. The report showed the EIP, when it flagged 2020 election content, was a stand-in for the Department of Homeland Security.

“We just set up an election integrity partnership at the request of DHS/CISA,” wrote Graham Brookie of Atlantic Council, an EIP partner:

4. Early diagrams of EIP workflow show a central role for DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which would provide a "warm introduction to election and special interest communities."

The "intelligence community" is also depicted as a participant:

5. That EIP was a fig leaf for DHS/CISA was never a mystery. Stanford's Alex Stamos said it was formed because CISA “lacked both kinda the funding and the legal authorizations” for its “necessary” work:

6. When @Shellenberger and I testified about the EIP before the Weaponization of Government Committee in March, outraged members denied the operation was secret or engaged in censorship. Wrote one, “CISA did not found, fund, or otherwise control the EIP”:

7. The denials triggered a long, self pitying media campaign, depicting congressional subpoenas and Freedom of Information requests as “tools of harassment,” and describing reports of a “government-private censorship consortium” as “false statements” and conspiracy theory:

8. Stanford's Renee DiResta to the New Yorker: “Matt Taibbi says something on a Twitter thread, and… members of Congress get to read my e-mails!”

In fact, congress read her emails because voters chose to give members who wanted them subpoena power. That, and FOIA.

9. New Twitter Files confirm the Weaponization Committee’s assertions that the EIP was a DHS operation from the start. “DHS want to establish a centralized portal for reporting disinformation,” wrote Twitter attorney Stacia Cardille in early 2020:

10. In May 2020, Twitter’s Lisa Roman wrote, “CISA received a grant to build a web portal for state and local election officials to report incidents of election-related misinformation,” adding, “This tool has been built in beta form.”

11. The Committee report noted Twitter was “briefed on the portal” by DHS in May, 2020. In June, Twitter executives added, “We have already done a demo with DHS/CISA,” and, “Twitter has already received a demo on this product.”

12. The EIP had asserted it filled a “critical gap” reviewing domestic political content, which “would likely be excluded from law enforcement action under the First Amendment… and not appropriate for study by intelligence agencies restricted... inside the United States”:

13. Among the most damning Committee revelations? Notes from a DiResta presentation on the EIP, saying the “gap” it filled “had several components,” involving “unclear legal authorities including very real 1st amendment questions.”

14. Worse, the Committee produced notes from a call between Facebook and DHS officials, showing the EIP created a platform for receiving complaints overseen by the quasi-private Center for Internet Security (CIS) because “DHS cannot openly endorse the portal.”

15. Instead, it was agreed a “behind-the-scenes” system would be implemented in which the private CIS would technically be the face of the program, but CIS and CISA would receive “incoming” content “at the same time”:

16. In other words, the convoluted bureaucracy of the EIP was designed to conceal the central role of CISA by making the “non-governmental" CIS – which this year received $42.9 million from CISA – its superficial intake mechanism.

17. This fit with Twitter Files documents, where EIP flags came with a disclaimer, saying complaints were already forwarded to CISA, which will “submit it to the relevant platform(s) for review,” and to the “Election Integrity Partnership of Stanford University.”

18. Among the EIP denials: “CISA did not send content to the EIP to analyze.”

CIS instead sent content to EIP, while CISA sent content to platforms “for review.” Readers may judge for themselves if the distinction is important:

19. EIP members complained that FOIAs and subpoenas were unnecessary because “our work is public” and EIP was no “secret cabal,” but the EIP didn't release individual recommendations on content until threatened with contempt:

20. When EIP finally produced the “JIRA” tickets showing the recommendations on flagged content, it wasn’t hard to see why they weren’t anxious to produce them. Many were phrased as direct requests for removal, e.g. “We recommend that these posts be removed immediately.”

21. Many posts recommended for action were clearly protected speech, like an ad claiming "do-nothing Democrats" want to "hijack" Republican votes, or a joke tweet by Mike Huckabee about voting on behalf of deceased parents:

23. Exhibits from the Missouri v. Biden case show the Atlantic Council worrying to former CISA official Matt Masterson that CIS may not be “effective” for “the USG,” because it came to see EIP “as a growth area and consistent funding source.”

24. Masterson replied, “I have been pounding on them for 2 months… not to gorilla their way into more.”

25. These documents should put to rest the notion that the EIP was not a government/Homeland Security operation. The idea that it's conspiracy theory to worry about First Amendment concerns with the EIP would also seem belied by DiResta herself conceding it:

26. For more, read “Big Brother is Flagging You” at . and "New Documents Reveal US Department Of Homeland Security Conspiracy To Violate First Amendment And Interfere In Elections," at Public:
Racket.News
open.substack.com/pub/taibbi/p/b…
public.substack.com/p/new-document…