'A whole new world': Former FBI counsel calls new social media ruling a danger to national security
Former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann sounded off Wednesday about the recent decision to restrict communication between the government and social media companies.
Speaking to MSNBC, Weissmann explained that the ruling from a conservative Donald Trump-appointed federal judge is a result of the issue being politicized by the GOP.
"I should tell you when I was at the FBI and the general counsel, you did not lightly make a call to a tech company to alert them to an issue," he explained. "You also didn't ask them to do anything. You didn't say, take this down. You don't have the power to do that. But you had calls where something was of a severe national security or criminal threat, and you would alert them to the fact that it was on their website."
He went on to explain that tech companies have their own policies. New Twitter owner Elon Musk revealed in December that emails were sent from President Joe Biden's White House and the FBI to Twitter flagging accounts and specific tweets, and highlighting users they said violated the site's terms of service, Fox reported.
In each instance, it proved to be true. Frequently, spoof accounts or fake accounts get created on social media sites. Since Twitter allows anyone to pay for a "verified" checkmark, and if that account purports to be a government official, it can cause problems.
Conservatives also claim that the White House told Twitter to take down things about Hunter Biden's laptop.
"So they just take that information, and they make their independent decision about what to do," Weissmann explained. "The idea that the government cannot do that is really fanciful. Just to be clear, the plaintiffs are the same people who have no problem with banning books in public schools. This really isn't a First Amendment issue. This is a conservative agenda. I think that, as we have talked about, this is one where if you take the politics out of it, this is doing something that's such a harm to our security."
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