It's the coverup that matters

Part II in the "United States of the FBI"

Matt Taibbi is reading through the TwitterFile emails between the FBI and Twitter and found strangely petty and detailed requests which reveal much more than you might think. The FBI were sending through requests to ban trivial no-name accounts who just posted jokes. They were also asking for their "location information" of people posting the jokes. The overreaction shows how entangled Twitter was with the FBI on day to day operations, but also reveals the hot button priority topic the FBI was so concerned about was election "misinformation". What are the FBI most afraid of?

"a surprisingly high number [of emails] are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation, even involving joke tweets from low-follower accounts.

Federal intelligence and law enforcement reach into Twitter included the Department of Homeland Security, which partnered with security contractors and think tanks to pressure Twitter to moderate content.

It's no secret the government analyzes bulk data for all sorts of purposes, everything from tracking terror suspects to making economic forecasts.