Twitter Files: Elon Musk says US agencies asked for suspension of over 250k accounts

In the latest set of revelations under the Twitter Files, the social media platform’s new owner Elon Musk claimed that the US government agencies had asked Twitter to suspend over 250,000 accounts. Musk was commenting on the Twitter thread of journalist Matt Taibbi, who is one of the select few journalists Musk handed over internal Twitter documents.

“US govt agency demanded suspension of 250k accounts, including journalists & Canadian officials!” Musk wrote.

 

The requests allegedly came from the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Global Engagement Centre which drew up a list of accounts that “displayed inorganic behaviour” and followed “two or more” of the Chinese diplomatic accounts. Many of these accounts were newly created and were believed to be suspicious. Among the accounts were Canadian officials as well as a CNN account.

 

Taibbi shared an image of an email to Twitter employees Nick Pickles, who served as the Head of Global Government Affairs, and Yoel Roth, who was the Global Head of Trust & Safety, at the social media platform. However, the mail showed that the list was being shared with Twitter for their “situational awareness and no action is requested”.

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Taibbi’s 40-post-long thread highlights how the US Intelligence community was putting pressure on the social media site to suspend accounts and restrict information. The growing relationship between the US intelligence community and Twitter under the Trump administration came to a head during the COVID-19 crisis.

Taibbi’s thread showed how Twitter was fielding suspension requests from agencies like the GEC, DHS, FBI, NSA, CIA and more. Taibbi even shared an email discussing Democratic representative and House Intel Committee Chief Adam Schiff’s office’s request to ban journalist Paul Sperry “related to alleged harassment from QAnon conspiracists.”

Musk, the eccentric billionaire who bought Twitter for a $44 billion deal, has also recently promised to share the ‘Fauci Files’ later this week.

 

Meanwhile, Musk’s primary source of his wealth, EV major Tesla, saw its value drop precipitously. The company’s shares dipped by over 12 percent in just one day.