Thread by @AlanRMacLeod

Thread🧵: Facebook is controlled by the US national security state.

Let me explain how and why the world's largest social media company has been penetrated by intelligence agencies.

For the full investigation, based on years of research, click below:

mintpressnews.com/meet-ex-cia-ag…

In 2018, Facebook announced a deal with the Atlantic Council, which would give the latter significant influence over the world's news feeds, controlling what billions see -- and what they don't see.

The Atlantic Council is a Pentagon-funded think tank with no fewer than 7 former CIA directors on its board. It was founded as a NATO offshoot project, is staffed by NATO generals, and acts as the military alliance's brain.

In other words, giving the Atlantic Council control over 3 billion people's newsfeeds is a half-step away from state censorship, but on a global level.

about.fb.com/news/2018/05/a…

Even more worryingly, Facebook is absolutely teeming with US spies.
My research has uncovered dozens of former national security state agents working in key positions in politically sensitive departments like Trust and Safety, Content Moderation, and Security.

Here, in this official Meta (Facebook) video, a guy called "Aaron" is identified as the company's face of content regulation.

You'd never guess from this video that Aaron is a CIA agent.

In July 2019, Aaron Berman left his job as one of the highest-ranking members of the CIA and was immediately parachuted into Facebook to become the top arbiter of content moderation for a platform that serves over 3 billion people.

So important to the CIA and to the national security state was Aaron, that he actually wrote the president's daily security briefs for Obama and Trump, read in the Oval Office every morning.

Another crucial person shaping Facebook is its Global Director of Content Policy, Mark Smith.

Before Facebook, Smith was employed by NATO as an advisor to the military alliance's deputy commander.

In 2022, Deborah Berman left a long career as a CIA intelligence analyst to become a Trust and Safety Project Manager at Facebook.

Before joining the CIA, Berman was a specialist on Syria, so it is likely she worked on the country during her time at the agency.

Berman worked at the CIA at the height of Operation Timber Sycamore, the largest operation in the agency's history.

Costing $1 billion per year, Timber Sycamore was a multipronged attempt to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. It included massive disinformation campaigns, and training and arming radical Islamist armies, including al-Qaeda affiliates.

In December, Assad was overthrown and replaced by the creator and head of al-Qaeda in Syria, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

I wonder why Facebook recruited her.

Cameron Harris was a CIA analyst before joining Facebook/Meta in 2021 to become a trust and safety project manager.

Between 2006 and 2010, Bryan Weisbard was a CIA intelligence officer.

In his own words, his job entailed leading “global teams to conduct counter-terrorism and digital cyber investigations,” and “Identifying online social media misinformation propaganda and covert influence campaigns”.

He later became director of trust and safety, security and data privacy for Meta/Facebook.

Another key member of Facebook's senior Trust and Safety management team is Scott Stern.

In his long career at the CIA, Stern rose to become Chief of Targeting, deciding who to kill in all those lovely drone strikes the US does around the world.

These are the sort of people who are deciding who gets banned, demonetized, or otherwise suppressed on the world's largest news and media platform.