Elon Musk says that the federal investigation into Twitter is a “weaponization” of a government agency for politically motivated purposes and a “serious attack against the Constitution”.

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• According to The Wall Street Journal, the FTC requested access to Twitter's internal communications.
• Twitter was also requested by the agency to identify all journalists who had access to its systems.
• Elon Musk described this as a "serious assault on the Constitution" in its relation to freedom of press.

Elon Musk criticised the Federal Trade Commission's investigation into Twitter. He called it a "serious assault on the Constitution" as well as a "weaponization a government agency to political ends."

According to The Wall Street Journal, 12 FTC letters were sent to Twitter by the FTC since Musk bought Twitter last year. These letters requested internal communications regarding Musk, layoffs and journalists who have access company records.

Musk seemed to be most upset by the FTC's request for "identification of all journalists" that allows them access to internal systems.

Insider reported previously that Musk granted Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and access to Twitter's internal systems while they were working on the "Twitter Files."

Taibbi posted internal emails in Twitter threads that showed content-moderation decisions such as the controversial censorship story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Musk claimed this was proof of "free speech suppression."

Musk responded to a Twitter user on Tuesday who called the FTC's request regarding journalists "an outrageous attack against the First Amendment."

A representative of the FTC told the Journal that the FTC routinely requested information companies give to journalists, as they could not withhold the same information from the FTC.

Musk has also criticised journalists on numerous occasions. He briefly banned several people from Twitter last November. CNN reported that Musk said Tuesday at a Morgan Stanley conference: "Believe only what you see on Twitter. Not what you read in newspapers." What you see on Twitter is real, while what you read in the newspapers isn't.

Twitter settled for $150 million after the Department of Justice & FTC claimed it had failed to inform users that their email addresses and phone numbers were being used to target advertising.

The FTC has been watching the company closely since then. In November, it told Reuters that it was "deeply concerned" about the resignations of four compliance and privacy officers. The Journal reported that Twitter was contacted by the government agency to provide details on layoffs, as it fears it cannot protect users' personal data properly.

Insider reported in November that Musk said to Twitter employees that he would do whatever it took to comply with FTC regulations.

Twitter and FTC didn't immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment, which were made outside of normal business hours.

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By: psyme@insider.com (Pete Syme)
Title: Elon Musk says federal probe of Twitter is a ‘weaponization of a government agency for political purposes’ and a ‘serious attack on the Constitution’
Sourced From: www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-calls-ftc-twitter-probe-serious-attack-on-constitution-2023-3
Published Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2023 12:45:33 +0000

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