Research: The Twitter Files — Complete Index

June 17, 2026

All 19 installments, December 2022 through March 2023. The internal documents revealed the mechanics of government-platform content moderation at scale: the FBI paying Twitter $3.4 million for staff time, secret blacklists affecting 10,000+ accounts, CENTCOM sock puppet whitelisting, and the Virality Project flagging true reports of vaccine side effects as actionable misinformation.

Status

Static reference index. The Twitter Files were a finite release (Dec 2022 - Mar 2023, 19 installments). What grows over time is the downstream record: House Judiciary subcommittee findings, Murthy v. Missouri litigation, Stanford Internet Observatory’s wind-down. Updated when material new primary documents land.

Where it appears in print: The Ratchet, Chapter 1 (“The Flagging Machine”) — the Twitter Files are the documentary spine of the chapter. Also referenced in Chapter 2 (“The Algorithm”) for the visibility-filtering disclosures (Part 2).

The Installments

Key Findings

The FBI-Twitter Relationship

The FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) grew to 80 agents focused on social media monitoring. Over 150 emails between FBI SSA Elvis Chan and Twitter Head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth between January 2020 and November 2022. The FBI paid Twitter $3.4 million for staff time processing government requests.

Communication channels included “Teleporter” (a one-way FBI portal for flagging requests) and the “Partner Support Portal” created by the Center for Internet Security, a DHS partner. Weekly and monthly calls, plus ad hoc meetings. Twitter execs lost track of which agency was which: “Is today the DOD, and tomorrow the FBI?”

The FITF — ostensibly focused on foreign influence — forwarded thousands of mostly domestic reports. FBI sent lists of hundreds of accounts at a time, flagging joke tweets from minimal-follower accounts.

Hamilton 68 (Part 15)

The Alliance for Securing Democracy’s dashboard claimed to track 644 Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations. Advisory council included Michael Chertoff (ex-DHS Secretary), Michael Morell (ex-acting CIA Director), and John Podesta.

Twitter’s Yoel Roth reverse-engineered the secret list. Internal assessment: “These accounts are neither strongly Russian nor strongly bots.” Taibbi: Hamilton 68 “simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming.”

Cited by NYT, WaPo, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, Politico, Mother Jones. MSNBC published at least 14 Hamilton 68 stories. Washington Post issued corrections after Part 15.

Hunter Biden Laptop Suppression

Late 2019: FBI subpoenas the laptop. October 13, 2020: Elvis Chan sends 10+ documents to Twitter hours before the NY Post publishes. October 14: Twitter suppresses the story under “hacked materials” policy.

The mechanism was indirect. FBI pre-conditioned Twitter through repeated warnings about imminent “hack and leak operations” involving Hunter Biden. Jim Baker — former FBI General Counsel, then Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel — advocated internally for suppression.

The 51-Officials Letter: Michael Morell organized 51 former intelligence officials to claim the laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Morell later testified he did it to give Biden a debate talking point. Multiple signatories were on the CIA payroll when they signed. Antony Blinken orchestrated the letter’s creation.

The Aspen Institute rehearsal: One month before the story broke, the Aspen Institute ran a tabletop exercise gaming out the exact scenario. Twitter and Facebook executives participated. When the real event happened, the response was pre-rehearsed.

COVID Content Moderation (Parts 10, 13, 19)

Dr. Martin Kulldorff (Harvard) posted expert opinion on natural immunity. Labeled “Misleading” for contradicting CDC. Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb flagged a peer-reviewed natural immunity study to Twitter as “corrosive.”

The Virality Project (Stanford-led, Part 19) recommended expanding misinformation policies to cover true reports of vaccine side effects, criticism of vaccine passports, and legitimate research on natural immunity. Taibbi: moved censorship “from judging truth/untruth to a new model openly focused on political narrative at the expense of fact.”

Pentagon PsyOps (Part 8)

CENTCOM official Nathaniel Kahler emailed Twitter requesting whitelisting of 52 Arab-language accounts “we use to amplify certain messages.” Twitter created a secret whitelist exempting these from spam detection. The accounts later deleted disclosures of government ties.

GEC Blacklists (Part 17)

The State Department’s Global Engagement Center provided a 40,000-account India list. Twitter’s Roth reviewed them: “virtually all appear to be real people.” The GEC’s 5,500-account China list included CNN employees.

Litigation and Congressional Followup

• Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden) — Supreme Court case on the federal government’s coordination with platforms on content moderation. Fifth Circuit ruling (2023); Supreme Court oral argument (March 18, 2024); Supreme Court opinion June 26, 2024 — vacated on standing.
• House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government — multiple staff reports synthesizing Twitter Files material with subpoenaed records. Staff reports archive.
• Stanford Internet Observatory shutdown — Washington Post coverage (June 14, 2024): Stanford’s top disinformation research group collapses under pressure.
• EIP Jira Ticket Report — House Judiciary EIP findings, Nov 7 2023.

Bridges

• ratchet-clicks — click 1 (“The Flagging Machine”) and click 3 (“The Kill Switch”) both link back here
• prompt-injection-timeline — the AI-moderation companion problem (same “attacker moves second” structure when the moderation is automated)
• revolving-door — Jim Baker (FBI → Twitter), Yoel Roth (Twitter → Goldsmith Fellowship at Harvard), Michael Chertoff (DHS → Hamilton 68 advisory board), Scott Gottlieb (FDA → Pfizer board → flagged Kulldorff)

Primary Sources