Internal documents reveal that Twitter has been supporting the Pentagon's top-secret Middle East propaganda campaign since 2017



Since Mr. Musk became CEO of Twitter, Mr. Musk has declared that he will `` surface the bad things Twitter has done in the past '' and has helped spread the disclosure information `` Twitter file '' that summarizes Twitter's internal documents. increase. In the eighth edition of the 'Twitter File' released on December 21, 2022, it was revealed that Twitter was cooperating in the formation of propaganda for the US military.




Twitter Aided Pentagon in Covert Propaganda Campaign
https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/twitter-dod-us-military-accounts/

Twitter Helped Pentagon With Foreign Propaganda Campaign – Rolling Stone
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/twitter-helped-pentagon-foreign-propaganda-campaign-1234650938/

Twitter executives have argued for years that Twitter is making concerted efforts to detect and stop top-secret government-sponsored propaganda campaigns on its platform. However, it is also said to have directly approved social media accounts and networks for the U.S. military, while also providing internal protections and whitelisting groups of accounts in response to government requests. In fact, the US Department of Defense has used networks including news portals and memes created by the US government to form public opinion in Middle Eastern countries such as Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Kuwait.




The accounts in question were initially openly affiliated with the U.S. government, but then used Department of Defense tactics to hide their ties to the government. This is a ``deliberate platform manipulation'' prohibited by Twitter, and despite being aware of these accounts, Twitter executives continued their activities without closing them, according to American Internet media. As Lee Fang, a contributor to The Intercept, points out:




Around mid-December 2022, Mr. Huang had the opportunity to be granted access to Twitter's email and internal tool archives along with a handful of other writers and reporters. After Musk acquired Twitter, Musk began accessing internal documents and said, ``Generally speaking, the first thing to do is surface the bad things Twitter has done in the past.'' , which gave unprecedented insight into decisions made within Twitter, Huang said. Although the internal document was partial, there was no restriction on access, and it was not necessary to agree to any terms regarding the use of the document.

Twitter's direct involvement with the Pentagon began at least five years ago, according to internal documents seen by Huang. On July 26, 2017, Nathaniel Curler, a staff member working for the United States Central Command (commonly known as CENTCOM), a division of the Department of Defense at the time, sent an email to the public policy team's Twitter representative, saying, ``Account Approve the verification' and 'I want you to whitelist the list of Arabic accounts used to amplify specific messages'. Kahler wrote that some of the accounts flagged as bots had real followers, so whitelisting was intended to increase their influence.



At the time, Twitter was expanding its abuse detection systems by flagging malicious activity related to terrorist organizations operating in the Middle East, according to a former Twitter employee who spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity. I was. A detection system automatically flagged as spam accounts managed by the military, which are frequently associated with extremist groups. This also caused CENTCOM's account to be flagged as spam, but on the same day that CENTCOM sent the request, a member of Twitter's Site Integrity team applied a special exclusion tag to the account from their internal system. is shown in the internal log.

While it has long been confirmed that the U.S. Defense Force has engaged in online propaganda, in 2006 it stated that 'only if specified in the global fight against terrorism or in the execution order of another secretary of defense is the Pentagon's Internet activity can hide U.S. involvement or otherwise openly acknowledge U.S. involvement unless operational considerations deem it impossible,” the government said. We don't allow online propaganda that pretends to be an unidentified individual. Meanwhile, in 2019, it passed a bill called 'Section 1631,' which referred to provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act, to bolster secret military secrets to combat online disinformation campaigns by Russian, Chinese and other foreign adversaries. It legally endorses psychological operations.

What is the reality of the large-scale influence operation that made pro-American impression operations on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram in Russia, China, and Iran? -GIGAZINE



Online security researchers affiliated with Stanford University's Internet Observatory released a report in August 2022 of ``thousands of accounts suspected to be part of state-sponsored information operations''. Some of the accounts disclosed in the report use AI-generated ``non-existent faces'' as account icons, and some of the methods and accounts are clear in Twitter's internal documents. Mr. Fan points out that it was consistent with the government-related account that became.




Twitter spokesperson Nick Pickel said in 2020, ``The goal of the platform is to weed out malicious actors and promote public understanding of these important topics.'' This position is contradicted when Twitter cooperates with governments or armed forces. Eric Sperling, executive director of Just Foreign Policy , a nonprofit that works for the diplomatic resolution of conflicts, said, 'If the Pentagon is working to shape public opinion about the military's role abroad, then the civilian If companies help hide it, it's even worse,' he said.

The 8th ``Twitter file'' released by Mr. Fan has been quoted and retweeted by Mr. Mask, and it seems to be said that Mr. Mask's endorsement information.




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