FBI agent blasts Twitter's 'gross subservience' to intelligence agency as its ... trends now

An FBI agent has slammed Twitter’s ‘gross’ subservience of Twitter to the agency – while saying other companies are more ‘adversarial’.

Officials from the bureau revealed that Twitter had handed over locations from where accounts were being operated – admitting that they regularly met with executives.

The revelations came from a new trove of internal communications from Twitter, published by journalist Matt Taibbi, who says a current agent slammed the social media company.

He claimed they said: ‘A lot of companies we deal with are adversarial to us. Like T-Mobile is totally adversarial.

‘They love leaking things we're saying if we don't get our process right.

‘I feel like that’s the default position. People used to get mad about that in the Bureau, but — they're supposed to represent their clients and their customers.

‘Why in the hell would you expect them to make it easy on you? Do the right thing. Do it the right way.’

It comes after the FBI was slammed for asking for specific information, including locations, which many saw as an attack on the First Amendment.

One user targeted by the FBI, who goes by @Lexitollah, said: 'Seems like prima facie 1A violation.'

Charlie Hurt, the opinion editor of The Washington Examiner, said it was 'a clear violation of the First Amendment.'

He told Tucker Carlson: 'They were actually opening up new back channels on platforms I've not heard of before, in order to keep in touch with one another.

'If this was happening during the Pentagon Papers, and we were seeing this level of collusion between the federal government and news, there would rightly be an outcry.'

Carlson added: 'The FBI was working for a political party - the one in charge. How is this different from what the secret police do in authoritarian countries?'

The FBI defended their work with Twitter, saying in a statement to DailyMail.com that it was routine - but refusing to confirm which other social media companies they worked with.

'The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors' subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities,' a spokesman said.

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'Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.'

Part of Taibbi’s revelations also showed that the FBI maintained persistent contact with company employees in recent years.

They also supposedly proposed frequent used bans - including for strident Trump critic and actor Billy Baldwin, and what appear to be satire accounts.

Taibbi pointed to a November 6, 2022 email from the National Election Command Post to the FBI, asking for their help in liaising with Twitter over 25 accounts 'that may warrant additional action'.

One of the 25 accounts was Baldwin's; another was Lexitollah's.

The journalist said: ‘Twitter's contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.’

The FBI passed on the NECP's request, which was threefold: to see whether Twitter's policies had been violated, to issue 'preservation letters' in case legal proceedings were begun against the users, and to ascertain 'any location information associated with the accounts that Twitter will voluntarily provide to aid the FBI.' 

Previously, FBI officials, meeting with Twitter executives, told them there was 'no impediment' to sharing classified information with them, according to an internal memo.

The files were the latest in a series of documents to be released after Twitter's new owner Elon Musk gave a group of hand-picked journalists access to the company's internal records. 

'Between January 2020 and November 2022, there were over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth,' claimed Taibbi.

'But a surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts,' he added.

Those singled out were shocked, with one asking how 'an amoeba' like himself had come onto the FBI's radar, while another said it was 'crazy' that the FBI was 'policing jokes'.

A third added: 'Anyone who cannot discern obvious satire from reality has no place making decisions for others or working for the feds.'

In one email from November 6, 2022, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Elvis Chan forwarded Twitter staff a lengthy list of accounts for review.

Chan wrote that the FBI believed the accounts were 'violating [Twitter's] terms of service by disseminating false information about the time, place or manner of the upcoming elections.' 

The list of accounts had been sent to Chan by the FBI's National Election Command Post, which compiles and forwards complaints, indicating that the list may have been based on community tips submitted to the FBI. 

The list included Baldwin, the brother of actors Alec and Stephen Baldwin, as well as what appear to be several satire accounts and the right-wing news and commentary outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network. 

One of the accounts had as few as

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