BREAKING: Feds used Russian election interference fears to gain access to Twitter, influence policy

A new batch of Twitter Files released on Tuesday shows how Twitter succumbed to the intelligence community. Through the summer of 2017, Twitter was not seen as a main player in the spread of so-called Russian disinformation. This changed in October when the company was being held responsible as “one of Russia’s most potent weapons in its efforts to promote Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton,” with Clinton saying that it was "time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to the fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyber-warfare."

Journalist Matt Taibbi dropped the new Twitter files, showing how the intelligence community used Russian election interference fears to gain access to Twitter and influence policy.

Following Clinton's comments that the platform was a hotbed for Russian disinformation, Twitter saw it appropriate to form a "Russia Task Force" to self-investigate, in what was likely a move to prove to Washington that they did not need external regulation.

The “Russia Task Force” started with data shared from Facebook, centered around accounts that were allegedly tied to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA), which is an organization known for creating and using divisive social media accounts. The search, however, bore no fruit, with one message stating that the investigation found "a lot of benign content" and that further investigation was needed.

Findings from an October 18, 2017 report found 15 high-risk accounts, 3 of which were connected to Russia, though 2 were connected to Russia Today. Twitter would go on to change its criteria for what was considered suspicious, with one message reading, "built a new version of the model that is lower precision but higher recall which allows to catch more items."

This saw more suspicious accounts flagged, though again, only 32 were found and just 17 were connected to Russia. " 2500 full manual account reviews, we think this is exhaustive… 32 suspicious accounts and only 17 of those are connected with Russia, only 2 of those have significant spend one of which is Russia Today...remaining <$10k in spend," one memo read.

Taibbi added that, "Twitter’s search finding “only 2” significant accounts, “one of which is Russia Today,” was based on the same data that later inspired panic headlines like “Russian Influence Reached 126 Million Through Facebook Alone”

The lack of findings from the Russia Task Force put the company in a PR crisis, which led to outlets like Politico attacking Twitter for "deleting data potentially crucial to Russia probes."

Congress then continued to breathe down the neck of Twitter. Taibbi writes, "As congress threatened costly legislation, and Twitter began was subject to more bad press fueled by the committees, the company changed its tune about the smallness of its Russia problem."

One email highlights how Twitter's political advertising may have been impacted by this. A message from Colin Crowell on September 23, 2017 reads: "Hi guys.. Just passing along for awareness the writeup here from the WashPost today on potential legislation (or new FEC regulations) that may affect our political advertising."

Taibbi writes that Twitter would eventually change its posture after more pressure from both the press and from Congress, saying: "Twitter soon settled on its future posture."

"In public, it removed content 'at our sole discretion.'" 

"Privately, they would “off-board” anything “identified by the U.S.. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.”