FBI paid Twitter back more than $3M for doing its dirty work on users, email shows

The FBI reimbursed Twitter to the tune of more than $3 million as it pushed the social media company to ban accounts and target so-called “foreign influence” operations, the latest installment of the “Twitter Files” revealed on Monday.

In an email dated Feb. 10, 2021, an unidentified Twitter employee told then-deputy general counsel Jim Baker and then-general counsel Sean Edgett that “we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!”

The email, published by independent journalist Michael Shellenberger, explained that Twitter’s Safety, Content & Law Enforcement (SCALE) division had instituted a “reimbursement program” in exchange for devoting staff hours to “processing requests from the FBI.”

The message added that Twitter had opted not to exercise its right of reimbursement prior to October 2019, though it did not say why.

The email notes that the funds will be used by Twitter on “[law enforcement]-related projects” including “LE training, tooling, etc.”

The reports by Shellenberger and fellow independent journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, have revealed extensive collaboration and employee overlap between Twitter and the FBI, who Taibbi reported last week treated the social media company as a “subsidiary” and repeatedly reported supposed “misinformation.”