Twitter deliberately exaggerated the extent of Russian influence on its platform in an attempt to appease the media and Democrats, even after internal investigations into the matter proved a “dud,” according to journalist Matt Taibbi, who released another batch of the Twitter Files today.
Twitter initially tried to stay out of the spotlight on the Russia issue in 2017, hoping Facebook would remain the main target of scrutiny from the media and Democrats. Twitter’s PR department even agreed on a media strategy to “keep the focus on FB.”
But after being slammed by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) for an “inadequate” response to allegations of Russian meddling, Twitter’s public policy VP said the company should “keep producing material” on Russian interference to satisfy the Democrats. As a result, Twitter formed a “Russia Task Force,” to investigate Russian influence on the platform.
But the task force found little evidence of significant Russian involvement on the platform. In October 2017, the task force reported that it had found “no evidence of a coordinated approach, all of the accounts found seem to be lone-wolf type activity (different timing, spend, targeting, <$10k in ad spend).”
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