{"id":237184,"date":"2023-06-12T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-06-12T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=237184"},"modified":"2023-06-11T09:10:50","modified_gmt":"2023-06-11T08:10:50","slug":"leaks-reveal-fbi-helps-ukraine-censor-twitter-users-and-obtain-their-info","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/06\/leaks-reveal-fbi-helps-ukraine-censor-twitter-users-and-obtain-their-info\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaks Reveal FBI Helps Ukraine Censor Twitter Users and Obtain Their Info"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The FBI aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to ban Twitter users and collect their data, new leaks show. Twitter declined to censor journalists targeted by Ukraine, including <\/em>The Grayzone\u2019s Aaron Mat\u00e9.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

7 Jun 2023 – <\/em>The Federal Bureau of Investigation has aided a Ukrainian intelligence effort to censor social media users and obtain their personal information, leaked emails reveal.<\/p>\n

In March 2022, an FBI Special Agent sent Twitter a list of accounts on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ukraine\u2019s main intelligence agency. The accounts, the FBI wrote, \u201care suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.\u201d In an attached memo, the SBU asked Twitter to remove the accounts and hand over their user data.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian government\u2019s FBI-enabled targets extend to members of the media. The SBU list that the FBI provided to Twitter included my name and Twitter profile. In its response to the FBI, Twitter agreed to review the accounts for \u201cinauthenticity\u201d but raised concerns about the inclusion of me and other \u201cAmerican and Canadian journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FBI\u2019s attempt to ban Twitter accounts at the request of Ukrainian intelligence is among the most overt requests for censorship revealed to date in the Twitter Files, a cache of leaked communications from the social media giant.<\/p>\n

The FBI\u2019s censorship request was relayed in a March 27th, 2022 email from FBI Special Agent Aleksandr Kobzanets, the Assistant Legal Attach\u00e9 at the US Embassy in Kyiv, to two Twitter executives. Four FBI colleagues were copied on the exchange.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you very much for your time to discuss the assistance to Ukraine,\u201d Kobzanets wrote. \u201cI am including a list of accounts I received over a couple of weeks from the Security Service of Ukraine. These accounts are suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation. For your review and consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The attached document, drafted by Ukraine\u2019s SBU, contained 163 accounts, including mine. (The list is numbered to 175, but some accounts have two corresponding numerical lines).<\/p>\n

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The listed Twitter profiles, the SBU alleged, have been \u201cused to disseminate disinformation and fake news to inaccurately reflect events in Ukraine, justify war crimes of the Russian authorities on the territory of the Ukrainian state in violation of international law.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In order \u201cto stop Russian aggression on the information front,\u201d the SBU continued, \u201cwe kindly ask you to take urgent measures to block these Twitter accounts and provide us with user data specified during registration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The SBU expressed its \u201cgratitude for the existing level of interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/picture>\n
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In a memo forwarded by the FBI, Ukraine\u2019s SBU asks Twitter to \u201cblock\u201d the listed Twitter accounts \u201cand provide us with user data specified during registration.\u201d<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

If granted, the users on the list would not only have been banned from Twitter but had their phone number, date of birth, and email address disclosed to both the FBI and SBU.<\/p>\n

Read the full list of accounts targeted by the FBI and SBU here:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twitter-Dissinf_20220327 SBU list<\/a><\/p>\n

In response, Yoel Roth, Twitter\u2019s then-Head of Trust and Safety, informed Special Agent Kobzanets and his FBI colleagues that Twitter would \u201creview the reported accounts under our Rules.\u201d But he warned that the list included \u201ca few accounts of American and Canadian journalists (e.g. Aaron Mate).\u201d Therefore, Roth said, Twitter\u2019s review would \u201cfocus first and foremost on identifying any potential inauthenticity.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Roth then suggested that he would be open to suspending authentic accounts if it could be proven that they have a hidden tie to a foreign government. Journalists \u201cwho cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules absent other context that might establish some kind of covert\/deceptive association between them and a government,\u201d Roth wrote. \u201cAny additional information or context in those areas is of course welcome and appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Twitter executive Yoel Roth\u2019s response to the FBI\u2019s censorship request flags its inclusion of journalists, \u201ce.g. Aaron Mate.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In his reply, Kobzanets did not directly acknowledge Roth\u2019s concerns about Ukraine\u2019s FBI-abetted effort to censor journalists. \u201cUnderstood,\u201d Kobzanets told Roth. \u201cWhatever your review determines and action Twitter deem[s] is appropriate.\u201d He also indicated that the FBI would not meet Roth\u2019s request for any \u201ccontext\u201d that might establish ties between journalists and a foreign government: \u201cUnlikely there will be any additional information or context.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside Twitter, Roth forwarded the FBI request to two colleagues. \u201cThis is the output of our meeting with the FBI last week,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe list of accounts is a mixed bag \u2013 there\u2019s some state media mixed in with a bunch of other stuff \u2013 but given the context, I think a deep dive here warranted.\u201d (Roth left Twitter in November 2022).<\/p>\n

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In an email, I asked Special Agent Kobzanets if he had vetted Ukraine\u2019s censorship request list before sending it to Twitter. I also asked Kobzanets if, after being informed by Twitter\u2019s Roth that the FBI was trying to censor journalists on the SBU\u2019s behalf, whether that had prompted any review or revision of his assistance to Ukrainian intelligence. Kobzanets did not respond.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The FBI\u2019s National Press Office also declined to answer questions. Among several queries, I invoked Twitter\u2019s warning that the FBI\u2019s \u201cassistance to Ukraine\u201d entailed censoring journalists, and asked if that has prompted any changes to the bureau\u2019s collaboration with Ukrainian intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we appreciate your inquiry, as a matter of practice we do not confirm, deny, or otherwise comment on specific interactions nor confirm the veracity of correspondence,\u201d an FBI spokesperson wrote.<\/p>\n

Read the full FBI-Twitter correspondence here:<\/strong><\/p>\n

FBI-SBU Twitter Request<\/a><\/p>\n

The FBI officials copied on the Kobzanets\u2019 exchange with Twitter include Elvis Chan, an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) of the FBI\u2019s San Francisco field office, where he manages its Cyber Branch. Chan was active in the FBI\u2019s contacts with Twitter when the social media giant\u2019s censorship of reporting on Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop shortly before the November 2020 election. (As I recently reported<\/a>, he was also involved in FBI\u2019s decision to forego a direct inspection of the DNC servers and instead rely on the Hillary Clinton-funded cyber firm CrowdStrike in the bureau\u2019s probe of alleged Russian hacking in 2016).<\/p>\n

Of the 163 accounts named by the SBU, 34 were suspended and 20 no longer exist. The rest remain active.<\/p>\n

Those marked for censorship by Ukraine but remain online include Russian politicians Gennady Zyuganov, a longtime member of Russia\u2019s Communist Party and parliamentarian who lost to Boris Yeltsin in Russia\u2019s 1996 president election; Dmitry Rogozin, Russia\u2019s former Deputy Prime Minister; and Sergey Mironov, a Russian politician and parliamentarian. The list also includes Russian journalists Vladimir Solovyov, a television news host; and Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled network RT. Several Russian government agencies and media outlets were also listed.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian nationals targeted by the SBU\u2019s suppression request include Anatoly Shariy, a video blogger and politician who fled Ukraine in 2012 and subsequently received European Union asylum; and Andriy Portnov, a Ukrainian lawyer and politician who served as a senior official under Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych\u00a0until the latter\u2019s ouster in the February 2014 Maidan coup. (Both Shariy and Portnov\u2019s Twitter accounts remain active).<\/p>\n

The disclosure of a collaboration on censorship between the FBI and SBU is the latest documented instance of Ukrainian state-tied attempts to target foreign voices. A Ukrainian website known as Myrotvorets maintains a list of what it calls \u201cenemies of Ukraine.\u201d I was recently added to that list<\/a> along with The Grayzone\u2019s Anya Parampil, as well as the comedian and YouTube host Jimmy Dore. The Myrotvorets database was co-founded by Anton Gerashchenko, former deputy minister at the Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he now serves as an advisor.<\/p>\n

Last year, the global tech\/media conference Web Summit withdrew a speaking invitation<\/a> to The Grayzone\u2019s Max Blumenthal and I after Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, demanded our cancellation. (Another Grayzone colleague, Kit Klarenberg, was recently detained and interrogated<\/a> about his journalism by British authorities).<\/p>\n

News of the FBI\u2019s work with Ukrainian intelligence to censor Twitter users also follows reporting from journalist Lee Fang<\/a> that the FBI has pressured Facebook to remove accounts and posts deemed by the SBU to be Russian \u201cdisinformation.\u201d According to Fang, a senior Ukrainian official in regular contact with the FBI defined \u201cdisinformation\u201d in such broad terms that it could mean viewpoints that \u201csimply contradict the Ukrainian government\u2019s narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Aaron Mat\u00e9 is a journalist with<\/i> The Grayzone, where he hosts<\/i> \u201cPushback.\u201d He is also a contributor to<\/i> Real Clear Investigations and the temporary co-host of<\/i> \u201cUseful Idiots.\u201d In 2019, Mat\u00e9 won the\u00a0Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for Russiagate coverage in<\/i> The Nation.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thegrayzone.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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