Video: Twitter was an 'FBI subsidiary' before Musk took over, US House Speaker Mike Johnson had said
US House Speaker Mike Johnson and new owner of X, formerly Twitter, Elon Musk
The newly elected US House Speaker Mike Johnson's past comments alleging that Twitter, now X, was an "FBI subsidiary" during the social media platform's days before Elon Musk, are now going viral.
The viral moment occurred after Elon Musk, the owner of X, reacted to a video showing Johnson's comments and called them "extremely concerning".
Johnson, who became the US House Speaker after a long squabble within Republican party members of the chamber, had made the comments in a hearing on the Twitter Files in March.
What does it mean?
Johnson is now in position to push for the measures aimed at reducing the censorship of individuals on social media.
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"The federal government, from Democrat members of Congress to intelligence agencies, including the FBI, used Twitter and other social media companies to censor Americans’ speech. If the alarm bells are not going off, then you’re not paying attention," Johnson can be heard saying atthe hearing.
Also read |Another Twitter Files? Netizens question timing of Elon Musk's blocking of content in Turkey
"The communication between Twitter and the FBI – it was content, it was pervasive. Twitter was basically an FBI subsidiary before Elon Musk took it over."
"Twitter was engaged in open information sharing with the intelligence community, and now we know there were many intelligence agencies apparently involved in this. The FBI pressured Twitter to act on election related tweets leading up to the 2022 election… and Twitter dutifully censored content."
Johnson was previously a member of the House Judiciary Committee under chairman Jim Jordan. The committee was investigating the potential link between federal agencies and Big Tech companies to censor the individuals.
Also watch |Twitter files 3.0 is out: How Trump was de-platformed
"Twitter has used its internal tools to control and manipulate speech considered misinformation. And who was determining that? It was the government bureaucrats."
"Documents show that Twitter used visibility filtering to restrict certain accounts and posts and remove people from the platform altogether. The Twitter Files should be a matter of bipartisan concern for every member of congress and every American citizen, because it is a bedrock principle of our constitutional system that the government does not get to decide what speech is acceptable or true."
The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter.
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