Twitter reportedly struggled to reveal US influence campaign

Internal emails showed company communications with the Pentagon through a network of military-operated accounts.

SAN FRANCISCO - In response to a request from the Pentagon in 2017, Twitter kept a network of accounts online that the US military used to advance its interests in the Middle East, according to emails company internals made public Tuesday by The Intercept, a nonprofit publication.

A Twitter counterterrorism division was aware of the arrangement, but others don't, said five people with knowledge of the matter. When he became more widely known within the company, executives rushed to undo him. But they struggled to publicly disclose military-run Twitter accounts, the people said.

Some of the accounts have been taken down, but others are remained online for years. Twitter finally revealed the US influence campaign this year.

The situation was unusual because normally Twitter removes and publicly discloses influence campaigns run by governments. Social media companies have taken a tough stance against state-sponsored influence campaigns since the 2016 US presidential election, when Russia misused Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to sway US voters. But in this case, Twitter's transparency efforts have moved slowly, and the company has shown deference to the US government.

Internal documents released by The Intercept were provided by Twitter under its new owner, Elon Musk. Mr. Musk has made an archive of documents available to select journalists to examine the decisions of former company executives. He did not respond to a request for access to the files from the New York Times.

It is unclear whether Twitter, under Mr. Musk, will continue to reveal influencer campaigns on its platform. The billionaire fired many employees who worked to detect foreign influence on Twitter and questioned the level of collaboration between the government and the company under his previous leadership.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for US Central Command declined to comment on the matter.

The situation began in 2017 when an official working with US Central Command asked Twitter to check some of the army accounts. , according to an internal company email.

The accounts had been flagged by a Twitter system used to automatically detect terrorist content and were not easy to detect. find in searches. The Pentagon has asked Twitter to "whitelist" the accounts, which would prevent automated tools from flagging them and make them more widely visible on the platform. Twitter's counterterrorism team has complied, two people familiar with the matter said.

Twitter executives became aware of the situation when a member of the The counterterrorism unit has asked the expanded security team to help automate the whitelisting of US government accounts, three people familiar with the discussions said. Surprised by the request, the security team asked to review the accounts, the people said.

Twitter allows governments to operate accounts on its platform. form as long as the accounts clearly indicate who is running them. Accounts that impersonate civilians are prohibited. Some of the accounts in the Pentagon's 2017 request were clearly labeled as government-run, three people who participated in the discussions said, while others were not.

Twitter executives later deleted some of the military accounts that weren't clearly labeled, three people involved in the discussions said.

But as the company routinely released other status statements...