Newly released documents obtained by the Intercept suggest Twitter secretly helped the U.S. wage a propaganda campaign in the Middle East at the request of The Pentagon. That’s according to the latest batch of the so-called “Twitter Files” revealed this week.
According to journalist Lee Fang, dozens of fake social media accounts covertly run by the U.S. military over the years were boosted and given special protections by Twitter, including verification and notoriety.
According to the report, the accounts were used to promote U.S. narratives, including anti-Iran messaging, U.S. military exceptionalism and support for the the Saudi-U.S. backed war in Yemen.
Twitter has had a very explicit policy banning governments from using the platform like this, even testifying to Congress that they would work to combat any state ran propaganda efforts. But the “Twitter Files” show that Twitter employees were both aware of the Department of Defense’s network of fake accounts and tolerated some of them until just recently.
This is only the latest chapter in Elon Musk’s campaign to pull back the curtain on questionable conduct at Twitter.
