The second installment of the #Twitterfiles dropped last night, and the revelations were much more interesting than the first installment, in this writer’s opinion.
Despite the left and those on Twitter insisting we were all just crazy, Twitter was actively silencing conservative voices on the social media platform.
Thanks to the intrepid Elon Musk and Bari Weiss, there is now proof that accounts like Libs of TikTok, Dan Bongino, and Charlie Kirk were flagged for what is commonly referred to as ‘shadow banning’ but what the Twitterheads called ‘Visibility Filtering,’ which is probably the lamest term I’ve heard yet.
But it was a tweet from Andy Ngo that caught my attention.
Exclusive: Bari doesn’t name too many names but the head of Twitter’s Strategic Response Team when secret actions were taken to stifle conservative accounts happened under Jeff Carlton, who worked for both CIA & FBI.
He just deleted his LinkedIn. But I have an archive. @elonmusk https://t.co/Q37tg4Dkpv pic.twitter.com/cpT1qJqN3L
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) December 9, 2022
How did the bluebird nerds pull off such an endeavor to launch what was clearly a targeted censorship campaign against conservative voices? With the help of those masters of the political intrigue game – the CIA and FBI.
Position Of Power
I love LinkedIn; it’s a cesspool of government and ex-military officials posting deep thoughts on leadership a la Jack Handy, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultants bloviating on how white people need to find ways to be less white.
It’s also an excellent source for independent journalists to find information on ex-government officials.
Andy Ngo outed one such employee who had deleted his LinkedIn account but not until after Andy was able to archive it for posterity:
“Bari doesn’t name too many names but the head of Twitter’s Strategic Response Team when secret actions were taken to stifle conservative accounts happened under Jeff Carlton, who worked for both CIA & FBI.”
Andy clarified that Mr. Carlton wasn’t the head of the team until last month but had worked on the team since May last year. If you don’t have a Twitter account and, for whatever reason, aren’t following TwitterGate, the Strategic Response Team decided who on Twitter was allowed to have influence and reach and who wasn’t.
As Bari Weiss disclosed last night:
“The group that decided whether to limit the reach of certain users was the Strategic Response Team…”
Talk about influence and power.
7. What many people call “shadow banning,” Twitter executives and employees call “Visibility Filtering” or “VF.” Multiple high-level sources confirmed its meaning.
— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) December 9, 2022
Open To Work
Mr. Carlton’s now-deleted LinkedIn profile has some interesting nuggets in it. For instance, in his About section, he had described summarized his career as follows:
“Former intelligence officer transitioned to managing high-profile content moderation and customer support escalations in social media/Trust & Safety. Head of Twitter’s Strategic Response Team.”
Yeah, there isn’t anything suspicious about an intelligence officer moving on to content moderation on social media. I’m sure there was absolutely no conflict of interest there.
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Besides the nonsensical and lame statement on his profile that he is a “Proven manager of managers” he also boasts the following:
“Expert communicator whose briefings and writings drove Cabinet and White House-level decision-making during special assignments to the CIA and FBI.”
I’d like to know what these briefings were about; perhaps they could be related to how to police and rein in social media platforms to curb ‘disinformation’.
But Mr. Carlton isn’t the only one who has found a home at Twitter post-career as an intelligence asset for a three-letter agency.
“[Jeff Carlton] worked for both the CIA & FBI, authored dozens of official reports, some of which were read by President Barack Obama.” The ex-intelligence operative who was part of Twitter team behind secret efforts to stifle conservatives: https://t.co/DLsF75Dpo2
cc: @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/S20uiEDhCc
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) December 9, 2022
Self-Eating Snake
Journalists have been raising alarms over the influx of ex-CIA and FBI officials landing jobs within the social media sphere.
Below is a snapshot of some of the employees who bounced their way from secret government jobs into a cush jobs at Twitter:
2019 Dawn Burton went from senior innovation adviser to the FBI Director to senior director of strategy and operations for legal, public policy, trust and safety at Twitter
2020 Karen Walsh became the director of corporate resilience at Twitter after a 21-year career at the FBI
Recently fired Jim Baker was the Twitter deputy general counsel and vice president of legal after previously working for the FBI between 2014 and 2018
Mark Jaroszewski became the director of corporate security and risk at Twitter after spending 21 years as a supervisory agent at the FBI
Unfortunately, the intelligence community has the same schtick as the defense machine. Military brass has been taking off the uniform one day to slide into a post-retirement gig as a board member of defense contracting companies, think tanks, or Pentagon officials for decades.
RELATED: Elon Musk: Twitter Files Prove Censorship Was ‘Enforced Against the Right But Not Against the Left’
Now intelligence operatives turn in their badges for lucrative gigs in social media.
How many CIA and FBI agents were working for Twitter? With the firing of James Baker, how many are left?
— Conservative Patriot Pizza Bitch (@PatrioticPizzas) December 8, 2022
Scratch My Back
The FBI has a broad mission statement these days. Their website explains their area of operations:
“The FBI has divided its investigations into a number of programs, such as domestic and international terrorism, foreign counterintelligence and cyber crime.”
Let’s break that down a bit further based on recent revelations. Part of the FBI’s job is investigating domestic terrorism, which has been blurred lately to include parents concerned about their school boards.
Libs of Tik Tok is well known for outing alarming progressive activities of school teachers and administrators. And they were one of the many accounts that were ‘visibly filtered’ – censored – by the team that included a former intelligence officer.
So while Twitter was under scrutiny in Congress for possibly silencing voices on their platform based on political biases, they could falsely claim that everything was on the up and up.
After all, they had former FBI and CIA officials working for them; you can trust the FBI and CIA, can’t you?
It sounds like a mutually beneficial arrangement for the employees and the social media giant, but not so helpful for everyday Americans.
In light of concerns about Baker’s possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue, he was exited from Twitter today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 6, 2022
Trust No One
FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley once explained the culture at the FBI, and it gave me flashbacks to my time in uniform:
“The truth is that at the FBI 50% of all normal conversations that people had were about how you were going to make money after retirement.”
Does that surprise a military retiree like myself? Not at all. I’d say 90% of all everyday conversations that brass had in their twilight years of service were about how they were going to make money after retirement.
That search for the six-figure post-retirement job meant that military brass, and I’m sure these FBI agents, would spend more time building relationships with the military-industrial complex or, in the case of the FBI agents, building relationships with the very people they were charged to investigate for wrongdoing. Talk about conflict of interest.
The FBI has now meddled in two presidential elections to help one political party. Congress has done nothing about it. The media is silent about it. No-one has been held accountable.
How can this happen in America? Unless they’re stopped the FBI will no doubt do it again in 24.
— steve hilton (@SteveHiltonx) December 6, 2022
So when your left-leaning friends and family call you a conspiracy theorist or crazy for thinking that there might be a concerted effort to change the narrative and the very fabric of what our country is about, take comfort in knowing that your conspiracy theory is rooted in reality and not fantasy.
The FBI is still meddling in politics and elections just as they have done for decades; this time, they are just doing it via your Twitter feed.
Now is the time to support and share the sources you trust.
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