Collusion between FBI and Big Tech is still seen as a possible risk to the 2024 elections

Four years ago this month, the FBI worked with Facebook and Twitter suppress A New York Post story detailing the contents of Hunter Biden‘s laptop, just weeks before the 2020 US presidential election.

Today, on the eve of another contentious election, America could see a repeat of what Federal Court Judge Terry Doughty said called the “most massive attack on freedom of speech in the history of the United States.”

The FBI knew Hunter Biden’s laptop was authentic in November 2019. Yet it is warned repeatedly social media platforms of a menacing ‘hack and leak operation’ ahead of the 2020 elections.

The FBI’s false flag served as a pretext Facebook And Tweet to suppress the New York Post story in October 2020 as likely “Russian disinformation.” At the same time, the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force marked other “domestic disinformation” without distinguishing between foreign and US user-generated content.

After a short break due to a court order, the FBI resumed coordination with platforms in July after the U.S. Supreme Court filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration‘s collusion with Big Tech over the plaintiff’s lack of prestige.

In other words, not much has changed.

In response to one two-year study Through the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the FBI has released a summary of its standard operating procedures for dealing with social media platforms to counter foreign malign influence.

Before engaging with platforms about specific content, FBI personnel are expected to identify “specific, credible, and articulable facts” that flagged social media activity is “attributed to” foreign actors – and not Americans.

FBI personnel should also make it clear that platforms are not expected to act or change their policies in response to information shared with them.

That all sounds great, but these processes lack real supervision or transparency. Furthermore, FBI officials claim that the bureau already follows these practices, and vehemently deny that protected First Amendment speech was ever targeted by Foreign Influence Task Force activities.

According to court documentsSpecial Agent Elvis Chan denied “that the FBI urged the social media platforms to change their policies on hacked materials….” Nevertheless, Chan admitted that the agency repeatedly asked whether the platforms had made any changes regarding “hacked” material.

FBI officials too told The inspector general says he “does not monitor social media content” and does not “investigate specific stories related to foreign malign influence spread online.” A unit chief of the Foreign Influence Task Force even claimed that the FBI is acting “on intelligence about the activities of specific foreign actors,” and not on US statements.

But the FBI often acted contrary to these guarantees. Two years after the Biden laptop suppression scandal, the FBI has once again censored Americans under the guise of fighting foreign malign influence.

The Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives found that after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine’s security service sent the FBI lists of social media accounts allegedly spreading Russian disinformation. The FBI forwarded these lists to Facebook, Instagram, Google and YouTube, removing some of the content.

Although the FBI claimed to target only foreign actors, the lists included posts from verified American users expressing their opinions on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Surprisingly, some lists included posts from journalists critical of the Russian invasion, and even @usaporusski, the official Russian Instagram account of the US State Department.

Similar to the agency’s flagging of so-called “domestic disinformation” in 2020, appropriate safeguards were not in place to prevent protected First Amendment speech from entering the fray.

Apparently the FBI has learned nothing from its previous blunders in 2020.

And to make matters worse, the FBI continues to retain some of the core personnel responsible for facilitating the censorship of Americans in 2020 and again in 2022.

For exampleChan, who served as the “primary liaison” between the Foreign Influence Task Force and social media companies, and who helped orchestrate the agency’s collusion with Big Tech, appears to still be employed by the agency. Can lied under oathreported the New York Post about his knowledge of the Hunter Biden laptop investigation and ignored a congressional subpoena to testify last year.

Given the FBI’s blatant misrepresentation of its own actions and avoidance of responsibility, the released standard operating procedures ring hollow.

It merely repeats processes that FBI officials claimed to follow while colluding with Big Tech platforms to censor Americans.

With just over a week before the 2024 presidential election, collusion between the FBI and Big Tech remains a clear and present danger.