Rep. Schiff Pressured Twitter to Ban Journalist, New Messages Show

A top Democrat pressured Twitter to ban a journalist, according to newly released messages.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)’s office pressured Twitter in 2020 to ban Paul Sperry, an investigative journalist, the messages show.

Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at the time, wanted “many accounts” allegedly linked to QAnon suspended, including Sperry, one message showed.

Schiff’s office claimed Sperry and the other accounts had “repeatedly promoted false QAnon conspiracies and harassed [redacted].”

QAnon refers to a movement of people who promote conspiracy theories related to government officials and other elite figures, some of which have turned out to be true.

The message also showed Schiff’s office wanting the removal of “any and all content” about staff on the House Intelligence Committee, including posts, shared content, and reactions to that content.

The message, an internal Twitter email made public by journalist Matt Taibbi, showed a Twitter official saying “this isn’t feasible/we don’t do this” to the latter request.

Regarding the request to ban Perry and the other accounts, the official said, “we’ll review these accounts again but I believe [redacted] mentioned only one actually qualified for suspension.”

27.They also received an astonishing variety of requests from officials asking for individuals they didn’t like to be banned. Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry: pic.twitter.com/SXI1ekqi13

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

Schiff’s office did not respond to a request for comment, including whether the California congressman pressured any other platforms to ban journalists.

Sperry said on Twitter that Schiff “used his power as head of House Intel to muscle Twitter into banning a journalist” and suggested the actions stemmed from his reporting on Schiff’s connection to the whistleblower who triggered the impeachment process against former President Donald Trump.

Schiff claimed he did not have “direct contact” with the whistleblower but his spokesman said later that the person communicated with the House Intelligence Committee. Schiff said he regretted his choice of words.

Sperry was ultimately banned by Twitter in February 2021, about three months after the newly revealed message. Sperry was told that his account violated Twitter’s rules, but he was not informed how.

“Explains why Twitter could never give me a reason for my suspension. It was Schiff!” Sperry also said this week.

Sperry’s account was recently restored after Elon Musk bought Twitter, which has not responded to requests for comment.

Musk has given Taibbi and some other reporters access to internal Twitter files.

In another set of messages, the Senate Intelligence Committee was shown to be in touch with Twitter on the removal of accounts.

Other Files

Other files released by Taibbi on Jan. 3 showed Twitter acted on requests from other parties, including the State Department’s Global Engagement Center.

The center, which raised concerns about accounts that promoted the theory that COVID-19 originated at the laboratory in Wuhan, China, near where the first cases of the disease were detected in 2019, successfully got accounts banned after identifying them as being linked to Russians, including some to the Russian government.

The U.S. intelligence community also designated individual users for removal, including an account that officials claimed was controlled by the Russian Internet Research Agency and that had posted “racially derogatory content targeting African Americans.”

Another message flagged multiple Russian media outlets, including the state-controlled TASS.

One recently released set of files showed Twitter taking action against doctors because their views diverged from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, including the suspension of Dr. Andrew Bostom, a Rhode Island physician. A Twitter review of the five alleged violations Bostom committed, though, concluded only a single instance was an actual violation.

A second set showed that Twitter moderators inconsistently applied moderation to then-President Donald Trump while not censoring President Joe Biden, who was a candidate at the time.

A third set showed the FBI communicating with Twitter about alleged information from Russian sources shortly before the New York Post published its first article about the laptop belonging to Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. Twitter infamously locked the Post out of its account after the outlet shared the article, claiming it was sourced from hacked materials. Former FBI lawyer Jim Baker, a top lawyer at Twitter at the time, said in one internal message that Twitter did not know if the story was from hacked materials but said it was “reasonable for us to assume that they may have been.”

Twitter also diverged from longstanding company policy when it banned Trump in early 2021, with former top executive Yoel Roth expressing confusion about the basis for permanently suspending the president, internal messages showed.

Musk has cheered the release of the files, saying they expose problems that were widespread before he took over the company. None of the executives or government agencies that sent or received the messages, nor Twitter itself, have disputed their authenticity.

The FBI in a recent statement said the messages between it and Twitter “show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries.”