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The Twitter Files
Disputed

The FBI's $3.4 million payments to Twitter

A Twitter email released in Shellenberger's Part 7 thread said Twitter had collected $3,415,323 from the FBI since October 2019. Elon Musk called it payment to censor. The record shows statutory reimbursement for processing legal requests for user data, not for moderation.

Dec 19, 2022
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Whose side it served: Neither party

The payments were routine statutory reimbursements that began under the Trump administration and do not show a partisan aim.

What the record shows

A February 2021 email from Twitter's Safety, Content & Law Enforcement team said 'we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019,' after Twitter began seeking reimbursement in 2019. Musk responded that the government 'paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public.' Federal law (18 U.S.C. §2706) requires the government to reimburse providers' reasonable costs of producing records under legal process. The FBI said the payments covered 'searching for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing' information. FactCheck.org concluded the payments were not evidence the FBI paid Twitter to censor content.

In their words

“I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!”— Twitter SCALE team email, Feb 2021 (name redacted) · source
“Government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public”— Elon Musk, Twitter owner · source
The other side

Critics argue the money shows a close working relationship between the FBI and Twitter even if it was legally required. The email itself did not itemize which requests were reimbursed.

Sources

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