4 ms·

Twitter is a tool of the US national security state and will do its bidding when told/forced to. The famous publicly acknowledged/bragged about one is when the

Twitter is a tool of the US national security state and will do its bidding when told/forced to. The famous publicly acknowledged/bragged about one is when the Obama administration tried to do regime change in Iran in 2009. Jared Cohen has go on the record multiple times bragging on how he got Twitter to follow orders: The Obama administration, while insisting it is not meddling in Iran, yesterday confirmed it had asked Twitter to remain open to help anti-government protesters. The company had planned a temporary shutdown to overhaul its service in the middle of the night on Monday but the US state department put in a request to postpone this. Many protesters have being using Twitter to spread information about rallies and to share news. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, asked about this at a press conference yesterday, would neither confirm or deny it, saying only that a free press and a means of communication were important. But the state department yesterday confirmed a request was made to Twitter. The New York Times last night identified the author of the request as Jared Cohen, a 27-year-old state department official. Twitter complied with the request, delaying its overhaul until last night. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/17/obama-iran-twitter https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/17/obama-iran-twi... - Washington Taps Into a Potent New Force in Diplomacy Yet on Monday afternoon, a 27-year-old State Department official, Jared Cohen, e-mailed the social-networking site Twitter with an unusual request: delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran. The request, made to a Twitter co-founder, Jack Dorsey, is yet another new-media milestone: the recognition by the United States government that an Internet blogging service that did not exist four years ago has the potential to change history in an ancient Islamic country. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/middleeast/17media.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/middleeast/17media.... https://archive.md/Pzt5q https://archive.md/Pzt5q

VictorPath 5y ago
Pretty much. CGTN tweets are tagged with "China state-affiliated media" ( https://twitter.com/cgtnofficial https://twitter.com/cgtnofficial ). RT (which Twitter seems to remove from search results) tweets are tagged with "Russia state-affiliated media" (https://twitter.com/rt_com https://twitter.com/rt_com ). Voice of America has no such tags ( https://twitter.com/VOANews https://twitter.com/VOANews). Voice of America is part of the US government's executive branch, and was created and is funded by Congress, which comes from the State Department budget. It had some aspects of independence from executive control, many of which Trump did away with. RT similarly is a creation of the Russian government with similar aspects of independence to VOA. One country gets tagged, one does not.
- _bfhp 5y ago
  There are many Israeli organizations operating in the U.S. that flat-out state "we are propaganda, please spread us" and they aren't tagged as anything (and never will be): https://twitter.com/Hasbarafellows https://twitter.com/Hasbarafellows https://twitter.com/CAMERAonCampus https://twitter.com/CAMERAonCampus
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  100%. To be honest, I'd rather they also tagged NPR and the BBC as state-affiliated media. They're more more independent than VOA or RFA, but they still know what side their bread is buttered on.
frozenlettuce 5y ago
>Many protesters have being using Twitter to spread information about rallies and to share news. 2008-09 feels like a different world - the term "fake news" took too much time to become mainstream
honkdaddy 5y ago
From my limited understanding as a Canadian, Twitter is more accurately a tool of the _Democratic Party run national security state_. I don’t recall them really ever playing ball with the past administration.
- koprulusector 5y ago
  Well, I mean, who likes fascists? Seriously, though, Twitter didn’t seem to care a whole lot til certain executive official accounts were attempting to sow public mistrust of free and fair elections in the US.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Twitter didn't take action against these certain accounts until it was clear their show was over. These certain accounts (well, one of them at least) have been misbehaving for a while, but Twitter didn't want to bite the hand that fed them. When it became clear that this hand would soon fade into irrelevance, suddenly Twitter started caring to protect its PR and appease the upcoming new "hand".
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  Pretty sure they would have played ball with a Romney administration, or even a Cruz administration. The national security state is bipartisan, but it is by definition establishment.
chriswwweb 5y ago
you: "Twitter is a tool of the US national security state", me: "stops reading" you will not educate anyone or create a healthy discussion with anyone if you start your argumentation with sentences like this, which are without a doubt false affirmations, which is sad because your post might be full of good arguments that I would agree with if I would have read it all... the irony about this is that the article is about fighting misinformation and you try comment on that topic by doing exactly that, posting misleading and factually inaccurate information
- dexen 5y ago
  Not to ding on you, but rather to make a general observation: There is certain irony to posting a strong "allergic" reaction to a rather mundane phrase in discussion of propaganda. One could say there was effective propaganda for the phrase to become a thought-terminating cliche.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

VictorPath 5y ago

Pretty much. CGTN tweets are tagged with "China state-affiliated media" ( https://twitter.com/cgtnofficial https://twitter.com/cgtnofficial ). RT (which Twitter seems to remove from search results) tweets are tagged with "Russia state-affiliated media" (https://twitter.com/rt_com https://twitter.com/rt_com ). Voice of America has no such tags ( https://twitter.com/VOANews https://twitter.com/VOANews). Voice of America is part of the US government's executive branch, and was created and is funded by Congress, which comes from the State Department budget. It had some aspects of independence from executive control, many of which Trump did away with. RT similarly is a creation of the Russian government with similar aspects of independence to VOA. One country gets tagged, one does not.

_bfhp 5y ago
There are many Israeli organizations operating in the U.S. that flat-out state "we are propaganda, please spread us" and they aren't tagged as anything (and never will be): https://twitter.com/Hasbarafellows https://twitter.com/Hasbarafellows https://twitter.com/CAMERAonCampus https://twitter.com/CAMERAonCampus
NoGravitas 5y ago
100%. To be honest, I'd rather they also tagged NPR and the BBC as state-affiliated media. They're more more independent than VOA or RFA, but they still know what side their bread is buttered on.

frozenlettuce 5y ago

>Many protesters have being using Twitter to spread information about rallies and to share news. 2008-09 feels like a different world - the term "fake news" took too much time to become mainstream

honkdaddy 5y ago

From my limited understanding as a Canadian, Twitter is more accurately a tool of the _Democratic Party run national security state_. I don’t recall them really ever playing ball with the past administration.

koprulusector 5y ago
Well, I mean, who likes fascists? Seriously, though, Twitter didn’t seem to care a whole lot til certain executive official accounts were attempting to sow public mistrust of free and fair elections in the US.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Twitter didn't take action against these certain accounts until it was clear their show was over. These certain accounts (well, one of them at least) have been misbehaving for a while, but Twitter didn't want to bite the hand that fed them. When it became clear that this hand would soon fade into irrelevance, suddenly Twitter started caring to protect its PR and appease the upcoming new "hand".
NoGravitas 5y ago
Pretty sure they would have played ball with a Romney administration, or even a Cruz administration. The national security state is bipartisan, but it is by definition establishment.

chriswwweb 5y ago

you: "Twitter is a tool of the US national security state", me: "stops reading" you will not educate anyone or create a healthy discussion with anyone if you start your argumentation with sentences like this, which are without a doubt false affirmations, which is sad because your post might be full of good arguments that I would agree with if I would have read it all... the irony about this is that the article is about fighting misinformation and you try comment on that topic by doing exactly that, posting misleading and factually inaccurate information

dexen 5y ago
Not to ding on you, but rather to make a general observation: There is certain irony to posting a strong "allergic" reaction to a rather mundane phrase in discussion of propaganda. One could say there was effective propaganda for the phrase to become a thought-terminating cliche.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]