These companies are deeply embedded with the state security services of the U.S. government, which direct the flow of content moderation for their own agendas. Twitter, for instance, âdirectly assisted the U.S. militaryâs influence operations.â8 The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, in partnership with Stanford University, made âspecific recommendationsâ on how companies like Facebook, TikTok, Youtube and Reddit âshould censorâ posts.â9
Even more, one report noted: âFacebook has recruited dozens of individuals from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as many more from other agencies like the FBI and Department of Defense (DoD). These hires are primarily in highly politically sensitive sectors such as trust, security and content moderationâŠTikTok is flooded with NATO officialsâŠformer FBI agents abound at Twitter, andâŠReddit is led by a former war planner for the NATO think tank, the Atlantic Council.â10