US-sponsored Twitter blacklists — Matt Taibbi

(RT) ⸻ The US State Department, both directly and through third-party organizations, pressed Twitter to censor American users for their non-existent connections to Russia, China, and Hindu nationalism, according to internal documents. Yoel Roth, Twitter's former trust and safety chief, was approached in 2021 and given a list of 40,000 accounts suspected of engaging in "inauthentic behavior" in support of India's Bharatiya Janata Party. The list was provided by the 'Digital Forensics Research Lab' at the Atlantic Council, a think tank funded by the US State Department's 'Global Engagement Center' (GEC). Roth investigated the list and found that "virtually all appear to be real people" rather than Indian bots, while Taibbi contacted several and learned that they were "ordinary Americans" with no connection whatsoever to Indian politics. The GEC also passed other lists to Twitter, including 500 accounts that were allegedly spreading Iranian "disinformation" and 5,500 "Chinese accounts" engaged in "state-backed coordinated manipulation." Roth described the Chinese list as "a total crock," while fellow employee Aaron Rodericks said it provided "more entertainment value than anything." The GEC and its organizations, such as the Alliance for Securing Democracy, had long pressed Twitter to crack down on allegedly Kremlin-connected accounts, but Roth told staff that it was impossible to detect "Russian fingerprints" on any of the accounts. Accounts that retweeted "news sources linked to Russia" were considered Kremlin-sponsored, and one list handed to Twitter by the GEC considered membership in France's anti-government 'Yellow Vests' movement as "being Russia-aligned." The US media was not skeptical of the GEC's 'blacklists', and multiple news outlets and agencies would receive reports from the organization and press Twitter to take action and ban the listed accounts. Reauthorization for GEC's funding is up for a vote this year, and Taibbi wrote on Twitter that "Can we at least stop paying to blacklist ourselves?"