After Elon Musk gained control of Twitter, he made available to a small group of reporters Twitter records known as the Twitter Files. Among the Twitter Files is information regarding efforts by the United States government along with Twitter to censor communication on the social media platform in the time before Musk gained control of Twitter. The newest revelations from the Twitter Files, detailed by Aaron Maté, concern the US government, via the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), having acted as an assistant to the Ukraine government’s main intelligence agency, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), to seek censorship of 163 targeted Twitter accounts — Maté’s included — as well as personal information related to those Twitter accounts. Read Maté’s chilling revelations here.
It is bad enough that the US government has been seeking to censor social media communication to advance the goals of power-hungry politicians, businessmen, and bureaucrats here in America. Now, comes revelations that, on top of that, the US government has been seeking to advance the censorship goals of, and hand over personal information of individuals using social media to, the government of Ukraine. Keep in mind that Ukraine is an intensely corrupt government, is overrun with nazis, and is apparently comfortable with targeting for assassination foreign individuals merely because those individuals have expressed views judged intolerable regarding Ukraine or its war with Russia.
The Ukraine government has also been relentless in suppressing free speech, opposition political parties, and the free exercise of religion within its borders.
Of course, the US assistance to Ukraine’s censorship effort has extended beyond Twitter. Maté notes in the concluding paragraph of his article:
News of the FBI’s work with Ukrainian intelligence to censor Twitter users also follows reporting from journalist Lee Fang that the FBI has pressured Facebook to remove accounts and posts deemed by the SBU to be Russian ‘disinformation.’ According to Fang, a senior Ukrainian official in regular contact with the FBI defined ‘disinformation’ in such broad terms that it could mean viewpoints that ‘simply contradict the Ukrainian government’s narrative.’
How about the US starts respecting the First Amendment, and stops assisting Ukraine in pursuing its authoritarian objectives?
