© AP Photo/Richard Drew/TASS

The so-called Twitter-gate is gaining momentum. To date, journalists have published 15 revelations, referred to as Twitter Files, with each one of them having its own name. For instance, "How and Why Twitter Blocked the Hunter Biden Laptop Story," "Twitter… The FBI Subsidiary," or "The Fake Tale of Russian Bots." The documents reveal what many have been suspecting for long – the "Ministry of Truth" does exist. And it's not just about censorship, but about attempts to create a technical public opinion governance model by means of social media.

After Twitter’s new owner billionaire Elon Musk pledged, in order to spite former CEO Jack Dorsey, to tell the truth about the platform’s hidden mechanisms, journalists got access to its secret documents. And then it turned out to have developed specific tools to manage public opinion, with each account assigned a special status to reflect the extent to which its agenda is considered acceptable to censors. If someone posted unsuitable content, his/her audience reach was reduced through a shadow ban or by blocking the profile in the search box.

Courtesy of Musk, a lot of details surfaced about the hush-up of the Hunter Biden laptop case, the blocking of Donald Trump's account, and other high-profile events like the arrest of Douglas McKee for publishing memes insulting Hillary Clinton, attempts to stop jokes about Joe Biden's dementia, falsification of expert opinions about COVID-19 and so on. All of this once again confirms Twitter’s carpet-bombing style censorship and double standards.

In the United States, freedom of speech – any speech – is sacred. 19th century enlightenment is believed to have only become possible when freedom of thought and speech began to flourish. However, those times have sunk far into oblivion, and in present-day United States one can only dream of freedom or independence. This applies equally to television, radio, newspapers and social networks. By way of Twitter’s example, social networks are no less endangered than traditional American media, though previously considered free from censorship and utterly independent.

In the Twitter Files, journalists said the company had a widespread policy of "secret blacklists" (shadow ban), in which no one sees the user's posts except himself or his followers. During the 2020 election campaign, Twitter worked hand in glove with team Biden and the special services. For fairness' sake, both US parties did have access to social media tools. For instance, the same year 2020 saw requests received and satisfied from both the White House under President Trump and the Biden campaign. However, the Democrats clearly had the ear of the Twitter crew, as assessed by at least the volume of donations from Democratic politicians.

Regarding the special services, Twitter was constantly keeping in contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sometimes acting like its subsidiary. The American authorities claim the government never gave orders and only made requests. And the company, in turn, "consulted" with the authorities back then. If we follow the Twitter Files, the later demanded blocking a quarter of a million user accounts. Censorship, pure and simple! And it violates the US Bill of Rights, which enshrines the fundamental rights and freedoms of man and citizen.

As for the FBI, dozens of its former agents and leaders were employed on Twitter. Thus, the bureau’s former general counsel Jim Baker worked in the same position on Twitter upon retirement. The department of "trust and security" (the platform’s censorship committee) – was headed by Matthew Williams, a former senior FBI intelligence analyst. Twitter's 50-srtong strategic response team was led by Jeff Carlton, a former military intelligence officer who also served at the FBI. And the list goes on. In 2020, the FBI's social media team was expanded to embrace 80 agents to enter into active correspondence with Twitter to monitor the presidential election, and send requests for selectively blocking accounts of the Democratic Party’s political opponents.

Apart from the FBI, Twitter worked closely with other American intelligence agencies, like the CIA and the National Security Agency. They received huge amounts of data from the social network to analyze it, and regularly instructed Twitter to remove particular "unwanted content". By the way, the platform’s chief censor Yoel Roth, who spent day and night at the FBI, was in charge of social network’s communication with the intel.

Let’s dwell upon the much talked-of Russiangate. During the 2016 US presidential election, all the American media trumpeted the interference of a Russian bot factory. Twitter, as it now turns out, denied Moscow’s engagement but could not officially contradict the narrative. If the FBI said there were Russian bots in your social medium, deem this as peremptory truth. No second opinions! However, those familiar with presidential campaign budgets and the forces involved, realized from the very beginning that a bunch of bots could have no significant impact on the election outcome. By the way, this has been repeatedly stated by Moscow. Yet the pillars of American media precariously insisted on the opposite – Russia interfered and helped Donald Trump into the presidential chair.

Coincidence or not, the Twitter Files release pushed The Washington Post to confess to the inefficiency of those bots. This very newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Trump's "collusion" with Russia. And now the widely hyped Russiangate scandal turns out to have been based on blatant dishonesty of politicians and reporters who had long ignored the lack of data for the sake of fictional frightening headlines. At the same time, allegedly compelling outlets like Politico or Rolling Stone, NBC or the Associated Press (AP) kept exaggerating the Russian bot issue, despite the utter lack of evidence. By spreading disinformation about Russiangate, they have actually provoked a major outbreak of wholesale delusion in the entire US history has never seen before.