Tag: twitter

Boasberg Rubber-Stamps DOJ Request To Keep FBI-Twitter Payments Secret

When the Twitter files hit in December of 2022, they revealed that the Biden administration had paid Twitter at least $3.4 million between October 2019 and February 2021 to reimburse the pre-Musk, left-leaning social media giant for a flood of requests. 

During this period, the Biden DOJ was going after vaccine skeptics, lab-leak proponents, 2020 election ‘deniers,’ Catholic parents, Hunter Biden laptop / Burisma content, and conservative news outlets. We also learned that the FBI’s Elvis Chan and crew were holding weekly meeting with Twitter on “misinformation,” and flagged thousands of accounts for the above. 

Days after the Twitter files were released, watchdog group Judicial Watch sued the Biden DOJ, which oversees the FBI, over a FOIA request demanding to know how much the FBI paid Twitter from 2016 onward. The FBI initially refused, but eventually released 44-pages of documents with the key payment details redacted – claiming the data was protected under FOIA’s “Exemption 7(E),” which lets agencies hide info about law enforcement methods if releasing it could help criminals or enemies dodge detection.

Judicial Watch then narrowed their claims to just those redacted payment amounts (JW dropped other issues such as vendor names), however in December of 2025, the Trump DOJ asked Judge James Boasberg for a Motion for Summary Judgement to deny Judicial Watch’s request – effectively concealing the extent to which the FBI, under Trump and Biden, was going after Americans. 

In its request for summary judgement, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office (say it ain’t so!) argued that revealing payments that are tied to real investigations could reveal super secret investigative methods – such as how much the FBI is “engaging” with Twitter vs. other platforms, which could lead to ‘bad guys’ (criminals, hackers, foreign spies) to switch to platforms with less FBI activity, and that it might reveal shifts in FBI priorities over time.

Revealing the quarterly totals could also betray “mosaic theory,” where seemingly harmless info (like one quarter’s payment) can be pieced together with public data (e.g., Twitter’s transparency reports) to form a big picture of FBI strategies.

Earlier this month, Boasberg agreed – ruling that revealing the payments could expose FBI “techniques and procedures” (how they monitor online threats) and help bad actors figure out what the FBI is focused on, allowing them to adapt and change strategies. 

Boasberg wrote in his opinion that the 7(E) exemption is valid because it could “risk circumvention of the law.” 

Keep reading

AI Safety Researcher Resigns With ‘World Is in Peril’ Warning

An artificial intelligence (AI) safety researcher has resigned with a cryptic warning that the “world is in peril.”

Mrinank Sharma, who joined large language model developer Anthropic in 2023, announced his departure on X in an open letter to colleagues on Feb. 9. He was the leader of a team that researches AI safeguards.

In his letter, Sharma said he had “achieved what I wanted to here,” citing contributions such as investigating why generative AI models prioritize flattering users over providing accurate information, developing defenses to prevent terrorists from using AI to design biological weapons, and trying to understand “how AI assistants could make us less human.”

Although he said he took pride in his work at Anthropic, the 30-year-old AI engineer wrote that “the time has come to move on,” adding that he had become aware of a multitude of crises that extend beyond AI.

“I continuously find myself reckoning with our situation,” Sharma wrote. “The world is in peril. And not just from AI, or bioweapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment.

“[Throughout] my time here, I’ve repeatedly seen how hard it is truly let our values govern actions,” he added. “I’ve seen this within myself, within the organization, where we constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most, and throughout broader society too.”

Keep reading

France’s Raid on X Opens New Front in Europe’s War Over Online Speech

French prosecutors staged a morning raid at the Paris offices of social media platform X, part of a criminal investigation coordinated with Europol.

The operation, launched in 2025, targets allegations ranging from the alleged distribution of sexual deepfakes to algorithmic manipulation.

The cybercrime division in Paris is exploring whether X’s automated systems may have been used in an “organized structure” to distort data or suppress information.

The alleged offenses are as follows:

  • Denial of crimes against humanity (Holocaust denial)
  • Fraudulent extraction of data from an ⁠automated data processing system ​by an organized group
  • Falsification of the operation ‌of ‌an automated data processing system by an organized group
  • Defamation of a person’s image (deepfakes of ​sexual nature, including minors)
  • Operating of an illegal online platform by an organized group

Prosecutors have now summoned Elon Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino for questioning in April. “Summons for voluntary interviews on April 20, 2026, in Paris have been sent to Mr. Elon Musk and Ms. Linda Yaccarino, in their capacity as de facto and de jure managers of the X platform at the time of the events,” the office said.

Yaccarino, who left in mid-2025, might find herself reliving the company’s most volatile months, when X faced regulatory crossfire across the continent for refusing to comply with what it called political censorship demands.

The case actually began with two complaints in January 2025, including one from French lawmaker Eric Bothorel, who accused X of narrowing “diversity of voices and options” after Musk’s takeover.

Bothorel cited “personal interventions” in moderation decisions, a line that seemed more about ideology than algorithms.

As the investigation grew, prosecutors took interest in Grok, X’s AI system, which allegedly produced “Holocaust denial content” and “sexual deepfakes.” The Paris prosecutor’s office soon announced it was examining “biased algorithms.”

Musk called the whole affair a “politically-motivated criminal investigation,” and considering Europe’s recent appetite for speech regulation, it’s not a stretch to see why he’d think that.

Keep reading

EU Records Reveal Absurd Justifications for $150 Million Fine Against X

Newly disclosed internal records, obtained by the US House Judiciary Committee, reveal that Brussels privately warned X that it could be blocked from operating in the European Union unless it obeyed a set of Digital Services Act demands.

We obtained a copy of the records for you here.

The decision, stretching across 184 pages, became the foundation for a fine of nearly $150 million. Buried in the text is a clear threat: if X failed to comply, the Commission could “disable access to the infringing service.” That phrase, lifted straight from Article 75(3) of the DSA, turns regulatory oversight into a power switch.

The fines themselves read like parodies of seriousness. €45 million for “misappropriating” the blue checkmark. Somehow, allowing people to pay to show they’re a real person and get a checkmark supposedly distorted “cross-industry visual standards.”

€35 million for an ad repository deemed too limited. €40 million for withholding data from “qualified researchers,” some based outside the EU. We all know what type of “researcher” that is.

Even the supporting evidence borders on comic. One example cited a parody of a Donald Duck account. Regulators claimed the cartoon’s blue checkmark could “mislead users” into believing the fictional duck was real. In Brussels, satire is treated as a compliance issue.

Keep reading

EU Targets X (Again) in Grok AI Probe

European regulators have launched a new investigation into Elon Musk’s X, focusing on alleged failures to control sexually explicit imagery generated by the company’s AI chatbot, Grok.

The case is being pursued under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a law that grants the European Commission expansive powers to police digital platforms for potential “harms.”

In a statement, the Commission said, “The new investigation will assess whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks associated with the deployment of Grok’s functionalities into X in the EU.”

The agency added that the review includes “risks related to the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material.” Officials stated that these threats “seem to have materialized, exposing citizens in the EU to serious harm.”

Keep reading

Democrats Demand Apple and Google Ban X From App Stores

Apple and Google are under mounting political pressure from Democrats over X’s AI chatbot, Grok, after lawmakers accused the platform of producing images of women and allegedly minors in bikinis.

While the outrage targets X specifically, the ability to generate such material is not unique to one platform. Similar image manipulation and synthetic content creation can be found across nearly every major AI system available today.

Yet, the letter sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai by Senators Ron Wyden, Ben Ray Luján, and Ed Markey only asked the tech giants only about X and demanded that the companies remove X from their app stores entirely.

X is used by around 557 million users.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

The lawmakers wrote that “X’s generation of these harmful and likely illegal depictions of women and children has shown complete disregard for your stores’ distribution terms.”

They pointed to Google’s developer rules, which prohibit apps that facilitate “the exploitation or abuse of children,” and Apple’s policy against apps that are “offensive” or “just plain creepy.”

Ignoring the First Amendment completely, “Apple and Google must remove these apps from the app stores until X’s policy violations are addressed,” the letter states.

Dozens of generative systems, including open-source image models that can’t be controlled or limited by anyone, can produce the same kinds of bikini images with minimal prompting.

The senators cited prior examples of Apple and Google removing apps such as ICEBlock and Red Dot under government pressure.

“Unlike Grok’s sickening content generation, these apps were not creating or hosting harmful or illegal content, and yet, based entirely on the Administration’s claims that they posed a risk to immigration enforcers, you removed them from your stores,” the letter stated.

Keep reading

Progressives misdiagnose their X problem

In the year 2002, then US-President George W. Bush did something historic: He became the first sitting US President in decades to see his party gain seats in midterm elections.

This came, at the time, as something of a shock to the still-dominant and still reliably liberal mainstream news outlets in the US. The punditry, as the votes rolled in, was one of shock and surprise and “how could this have happened?” – scenes that would be repeated on election night two years later, and then taken to their absolute extreme in 2016 as Donald Trump consigned the First. Woman. President. to an electoral footnote.

Anyway, that election night has always stuck with me because of an exchange that took place on, I think, CNN between Democrat political advisor James Carville and Bush advisor Karl Rove. “Democrats just didn’t get their message out this time”, intoned Carville, somberly. “No”, replied Rove. “You guys always say that.” “The problem is not that you didn’t get your message out, it is that you did, and people didn’t like it”.

That particular exchange has come to mind in recent days watching the latest round of the twitter/X wars. Yesterday, Una Mullally took to the pages of the Irish Times to become the latest liberal pundit to denounce X. Over in the UK, there is talk of a ban. An internet blackout, of sorts, in a democratic country, preventing the public from accessing Elon Musk’s digital playground. Similar discussions are apparently happening in Australia, Canada, and of course in Brussels.

The official reason is of course that people are shocked, shocked to discover that there is porn on the internet and that AI tools are capable of digitally altering images to remove people’s clothes (I consider myself fortunate enough that nobody would ever wish to do that to me, for the sake of their eyes). But there’s an unofficial reason too, and it’s openly admitted. Here’s Una:

“Politicians need to realise that X is not Twitter. Under Musk, X is a vast disinformation network, a hotbed of racism, hate, extremism and dystopian delusions. It is a radicalisation tool, an arena of harassment, and yes, its chatbot is a creator, publisher and distributor of awful material.”

Note the “and yes” there at the end before she gets to Grok. It’s as plain an admission that you’ll see that the AI porn problem is an ancillary reason, not the primary reason, why politicians should be taking action. The primary reasons are set out in detail before hand: Disinformation, racism, hate, extremism, and something called dystopian delusions.

(Seriously, one might have thought the notion that governments should ban online discussion forums to save democracy from the people was a “dystopian delusion”. Evidently not.)

Keep reading

Here’s PROOF That UK’s X Ban Has NOTHING To Do With Protecting Children

As UK authorities ramp up their assault on free speech, a viral post shared by Elon Musk exposes the glaring hypocrisy in the government’s “protect the children” narrative. Data from the The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) and police forces reveals Snapchat as the epicenter of online child sexual grooming, dwarfing X’s minimal involvement.

This comes amid Keir Starmer’s escalating war on X, where community notes routinely dismantle government spin, and unfiltered truth is delivered to the masses. If safeguarding kids was the real goal, it would be the likes of Snapchat in the crosshairs, given that thousands of real world child sexual offences have originated from its use.

Instead they’re going after X because, they claim, it provides the ability to make fake images of anyone in a bikini using the inbuilt Grok Ai image generator.

Based on 2025 NSPCC and UK police data, Snapchat is linked to 40-48% of identified child grooming cases, Instagram around 9-11%, Facebook 7-9%, WhatsApp 9%, and X under 2%.

These numbers align with NSPCC’s alarming report on the surge in online grooming. The charity recorded over 7,000 Sexual Communication with a Child offences in 2023/24—an 89% spike since 2017/18.

Keep reading

Starmer’s Looking for an Excuse to Ban X

Keir Starmer has signaled he is prepared to back regulatory action that could ultimately result in X being blocked in the UK.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has suggested, more or less, that because Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok has been generating images of women and minors in bikinis, he’ll support going as far as hitting the kill switch and blocking access to the entire platform.

“The situation is disgraceful and disgusting,” Starmer said on Greatest Hits Radio; the station best known for playing ABBA and now, apparently, for frontline authoritarian tech policy announcements.

“X has got to get a grip of this, and Ofcom has our full support to take action…I’ve asked for all options to be on the table.”

“All options,” for those who don’t speak fluent Whitehall euphemism, now apparently includes turning Britain’s digital infrastructure into a sort of beige North Korea, where a bunch of government bureaucrats, armed with nothing but Online Safety Act censorship law and the panic of a 90s tabloid, get to decide which speech the public is allowed to see.

Now, you might be wondering: Surely he’s bluffing? Oh no. According to Downing Street sources, they’re quite serious.

And they’ve even named the mechanism: the Online Safety Act; that cheery little piece of legislation that sounds like it’s going to help grandmothers avoid email scams, but actually gives Ofcom the power to block platforms, fine them into oblivion, or ban them entirely if they don’t comply with government censorship orders.

Killing X isn’t a new idea. You may remember Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff, founded the Centre for Countering Digital Hate. In 2024, leaks revealed that the group was trying to “Kill Musk’s Twitter.”

Keep reading

U.K. opposition leaders demand human rights activist be stripped of citizenship for past tweets

Political opposition leaders in the United Kingdom have called for a human rights activist to be stripped of his citizenship over past social media posts allegedly containing violent and antisemitic language within days of the dual national returning to Britain after years in Egyptian prisons.

The leaders of the Conservative and Reform parties also demanded the deportation of Alaa Abd el-Fattah following the discovery of tweets from more than a decade ago in which he allegedly endorsed killing “Zionists’’ and police.

“The comments he made on social media about violence against Jews, white people and the police, amongst others, are disgusting and abhorrent,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote Monday in the Daily Mail newspaper.

Abd el-Fattah on Monday apologized for the tweets while saying some had been taken out of context and misrepresented.

The activist has spent years in Egyptian prisons, most recently for allegedly spreading fake news about the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. He returned to the U.K. on Friday after Egyptian authorities lifted a travel ban that had forced him to remain in the country since he was released in September.

But he immediately became embroiled in controversy after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “delighted” that Abd el-Fattah was back in the UK and had been reunited with his family.

That triggered the republication of messages on the social media platform Twitter, now X, that were described as antisemitic, homophobic and anti-British.

Abd el-Fattah expressed shock at the turn of events in a statement released Monday.

“I am shaken that, just as I am being reunited with my family for the first time in 12 years, several historic tweets of mine have been republished and used to question and attack my integrity and values, escalating to calls for the revocation of my citizenship,’’ he said.

The remarks were mostly expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations in a time of regional crises such as the wars in Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza and the rise of police brutality against young people in Egypt, Abd el-Fattah said.

“Looking at the tweets now – the ones that were not completely twisted out of their meaning – I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologise,’’ he said in the statement.

But that has not staunched the flow of anger from politicians.

Keep reading