Sundance | The Last Refuge
… He still hasn’t identified the source code, the proverbial ghost in the machine, buried deep in the algorithmic code; however, Twitter owner Elon Musk has finally identified the agency within the U.S. government who spearheaded the creation. The “Global Engagement Center” (GEC) of the State Dept.
The GEC mission is described as, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,”.
When you overlay the expanded Dept of State mission that Obama delivered, transferring GEC intent to domestic operations, suddenly the background of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop (Twitter) makes sense.
Apparently, Elon Musk is starting to realize what is inside the communication platform he purchased.
Currently, the headlines are filled with stories about Twitter and revelations of censorship and government influence coming from the purchase of the platform by Elon Musk.
♦ Elevator Speech: Twitter is to the U.S. government as TikTok is to China. The overarching dynamic is the need to control public perceptions and opinions. DHS has been in ever increasing control of Twitter since the public-private partnership was formed in 2011/2012. Jack Dorsey lost control and became owner emeritus; arguably, Elon Musk had no idea.
In/around 2011 and 2012 the U.S. Government, Obama administration and the U.S. State Dept., came into [Twitter] and asked [Jack] for help.
[Note, the timing here is not accidental. The operational agreement happened at the same time DHS was fine tuning the domestic surveillance systems to monitor social media platforms and target political opposition. See The Fourth Branch.]
By 2018, Jack had essentially become an “owner emeritus”; his name was on the shingle, but the day-to-day operation of [Twitter] had turned into an industrial park complex.
Jack saw his personal wealth attached to the success of the business, but operationally, his only responsibility was traveling to symposiums and venues where he would stand on stage and wax philosophically about the future of a[n] organization he no longer controlled. Those experts came from the Dept of Homeland Security.
[The Intercept] – […] Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.
“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.
In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government. Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.” (read more)
Experts could now use direct portals to the facility to operate [Twitter] systems remotely, with a limited number of specially trained (FBI) engineers doing the laborious tasks and maintenance at the facility.
[…] The extent to which the DHS initiatives affect Americans’ daily social feeds is unclear. During the 2020 election, the government flagged numerous posts as suspicious, many of which were then taken down, documents cited in the Missouri attorney general’s lawsuit disclosed. And a 2021 report by the Election Integrity Partnership at Stanford University found that of nearly 4,800 flagged items, technology platforms took action on 35 percent — either removing, labeling, or soft-blocking speech, meaning the users were only able to view content after bypassing a warning screen. The research was done “in consultation with CISA,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Prior to the 2020 election, tech companies including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media met on a monthly basis with the FBI, CISA, and other government representatives. According to NBC News, the meetings were part of an initiative, still ongoing, between the private sector and government to discuss how firms would handle misinformation during the election. (keep reading)
After several years of increasing distance from [Twitter’s] operation he initially started, eventually Jack decided to sell his shingle to someone else.
Enter, Elon Musk.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a man intimately familiar with large industrial systems and government, had been watching the disgruntled visitors to [Twitter] who were no longer permitted to enter.
With expressions of both interest and fellowship, Mr. Elon Musk told Mr. Jack Dorsey he would take ownership of [Twitter] and remove any discriminatory guards that were now controlling permitted entry. Jack had no aversion to Elon and eventually a deal was brokered.
After the transfer of sale was complete, Mr. Musk fired many of the guards.
Musk ha[d] no idea that a DHS portal into [Twitter] existed and what it would be for.
The State Dept initially created the partnership between the U.S. government and Twitter (Arab Spring). However, when the operations needed to become domestically centered (post Trump election), another agency stepped in – the United States Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) is the operating system running in the background of Twitter.
You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the scenario of owner/operator motive actually is. Decide for yourself, but with public statements it genuinely looks like Musk didn’t know.
Regardless of foreknowledge, I feel confident the conflicting and odd datapoints only reconcile in one direction. The State Dept started it, but now DHS, via CISA, controls Twitter.
Wittingly or unwittingly, Elon Musk is now the face of a quasi govt-controlled enterprise.
If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic.
Put simply, DHS stakeholders, to include the DOJ, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), are mitigating any consequential public exposure of their domestic surveillance activity by controlling and feeding Mr. Musk selected information about their prior Twitter operations. DHS is still the ghost in the machine.
TikTok is to Beijing as Twitter is to Washington DC.
The larger objective of U.S. involvement in social media has always been monitoring and surveillance of the public conversation, and then ultimately controlling and influencing public opinion.
Mr. Elon Musk and his team are combing through millions of lines of algorithmic code, trying to find that “fundamental part” that will deliver their own ‘ah-ha’ moment.
DISCLAIMER: SituationBrief took the liberty of eliminating a good portion of the article’s ‘fluff’ and ‘commentary’, while also switching references to “Jack’s Coffee Shop” with [Twitter].
You can read the full article at ConservativeTreeHouse.