The story of Twitter's close partnership and collaboration with U.S. administration and top government officials raged on in Maine over the weekend.
Saturday night, when the independent reporter Matt Taibbi shared what appears to be a record of requests made in October 2018 from officials from the department of U.S. Sen. Angus King to monitor accounts that follow his opponent at the time Sen. Eric Brakey (R-Androscoggin).
Taibbi is one of the handfuls of journalists hired by Twitter's current proprietor, Elon Musk, authorized to look over the archives of Twitter's frequently closely-knit collaboration with the federal government.
"If Dick Nixon sniffed glue, this is what his enemies list would look like," Taibbi wrote in reference to the list of names that King's office had allegedly "reported" to Twitter as suspicious. Some of the reasons why Twitter should be considered suspect include: "Rand Paul visit excitement," "Bot (averages 20 tweets a day), Mentions immigration," or follows Eric Brakey.
Taibbi's article did not provide any specific information regarding the steps that King's team suggested Twitter take, but past Twitter Files revelations have exposed that the social media platform will block any accounts that have been indicated by government officers, as well as make them invisible to other users.
Brakey was not amused by the report, instead feeling more alarmed. He told the Maine Wire: Matt Taibbis report shows that Angus Kings staffers tried to silence his political opponent and hundreds of constituents. What Kings staff appears to have done on his behalf is repugnant to American values.
King's office has not responded to Taibbi, he wrote in a blog post posted at 7:45 pm Saturday. Maine Wire Maine Wire reached out to King's office shortly afterward but didn't get any immediate responses.
"Senator King needs to come clean with the people of Maine about his attempts to censor voters and limit freedoms of speech," Brakey said.
If Taibbi's report is true and the report hasn't been challenged by a scientific basis regarding the Twitter beat, this is worrying evidence of the power of the politicians and their staff who relied on Twitter to stifle their opposition.
King is not the only one requesting such from Twitter. We now know that "Biden team" members demanded that Twitter remove stories about Hunter Biden's lost laptop and the content it contained. It's unclear as of now if other prominent Maine political leaders have also relied on the giant social media firms to disarm or silence their opposition.
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