The newest “Twitter Files” thread exposing the interior workings of pre-Elon Musk Twitter dropped Tuesday, disclosing how the social media large helped the US army with a secret ‘PsyOp’ marketing campaign.
“Despite promises to shut down covert state-run propaganda networks, Twitter docs show that the social media giant directly assisted the U.S. military’s influence operations,” tweeted investigative journalist Lee Fang of The Intercept.
Fang’s revelations are the most recent in a sequence of Twitter inner paperwork and communications launched by the platform’s new CEO.
Fang mentioned Musk had “no input” on his report, which detailed how Twitter labored with the Pentagon regardless of Twitter claiming for years that they “make concerted efforts to detect & thwart gov-backed platform manipulation.”
“But behind the scenes, Twitter gave approval & special protection to the U.S. military’s online psychological influence ops,” Fang continued in his thread. “Despite the knowledge that Pentagon propaganda accounts used covert identities, Twitter did not suspend many for around 2 years or more. Some remain active.”
Fang mentioned Twitter labored hand-in-hand with US Central Command (CENTCOM) to provide the US army blue examine verification standing.
“The CENTCOM accounts on the list tweeted frequently about U.S. military priorities in the Middle East, including promoting anti-Iran messages, promotion of the Saudi Arabia-U.S. backed war in Yemen, and ‘accurate’ U.S. drone strikes that claimed to only hit terrorists,” Fang revealed.
Fang added {that a} Twitter official informed him he felt “deceived by the covert shift.”
“Still, many emails from throughout 2020 show that high-level Twitter executives were well aware of DoD’s vast network of fake accounts & covert propaganda and did not suspend the accounts,” mentioned Fang, referring to the Department of Defense.
Musk shared Fang’s thread on Twitter as he has with different “Twitter Files” reviews.
“Yikes!” Musk tweeted.
