TWITTER FILES: Emails Show Twitter Coordinated Closely with Biden Administration and Allied Lobbyists on Censorship Problems

How can a company reliant on government advice and help make decisions independent of that same government?

9 minute read

Elon Musk shut down operations of X in Brazil this week after judge Alexandre de Moraes ordered the company to suspend some accounts or face the arrest of X’s legal representative in the country—in just the latest controversy over government censorship. However, newly disclosed emails show that, when facing similar problems in India its third largest market, the old Twitter regime hired a lobby shop filled with Biden loyalists, and then began coordinating closely with the Biden administration.

These emails calls into sharp question claims by Democrats and their allies in the media that Twitter did not collude with federal agencies and was free from Biden administration pressure to make its own censorship decisions.

In the past, Musk has faced charges of hypocrisy for bending to foreign governments’ call to censor their own citizens, as well as ridicule for claims that Biden administration censored Americans at home. Shortly after he bought Twitter in late 2022, Musk began working with several reporters, including myself, to propagate the Twitter Files, internal company records that showed close coordination between U.S. government officials and social media companies to censor viewpoints and accounts—often those that opposed Biden administration policies.

But when Republicans seized on the records in early 2023, Democrats shot back in hearings, arguing that, despite documented pressure from federal agencies, Twitter was a “private company” that made its own decisions. “[T]he hearing was just the latest effort to advance an increasingly popular Republican narrative that Democrats colluded with social media companies, reported journalists at the Washington Post, regurgitating comments from House Democrats, while accusing Republicans of spreading a “conspiracy.”

Never before seen Twitter Files call into question both Democrat’s claims that Twitter was merely a “private company” making its own decisions, as well as the Washington Post’s dismissive reports that Democrats colluding with the social media company was just a “popular Republican narrative.” 

According to newly released emails, when India pressured Twitter to censor accounts in 2021, the company hired Albright Stonebridge, a firm closely aligned with the Biden administration, to lobby Biden’s State Department for help with the Modi regime.

“This is John Hughes from Albright Stonebridge Group, the commercial diplomacy firm founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,” wrote Twitter’s lobbyist to Deputy Assistant Secretary Laura Stone, who oversaw US policy with India. “We were wondering if you or somebody on your team would be available tomorrow for us to brief you further on this issue and to seek your advice on how to approach and whether the Embassy would be willing to raise this with the Indian government.”

Around this same timeframe, emails show that the State Department was pressuring Twitter to censor accounts they didn’t like. Nonetheless, Twitter executives then began collaborating with officials in the State Department and America’s embassy in India to deal with Modi’s calls for censorship.