WASHINGTON — Dozens of former national security officials have taken jobs on Facebook and Twitter after leaving government service, expressing concerns about their former agencies’ influence on social media giants.
On Twitter alone, no less than eight former FBI agents work in the corporate’s so-called “trust” and “security” departments – including product policy manager Greg Anderson, who previously worked on “psychological operations” on the National Security Council, has learned. One other is Matthew Williams, the corporate’s co-chair of trust and security, who spent greater than 15 years interviewing the agency.
The invention of a pipeline from DC to Silicon Valley comes amid outrage over revelations that the FBI influenced Twitter to cover The Post’s account over reports of Hunter Biden’s overseas business interests in October 2020 and usually demanded the ban of certain accounts and tweets.
Multiple releases of internal company documents since December 2 show that Twitter has developed an in depth working relationship with the intelligence community, which has often relied on them to censor political speech.
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Migration from the intelligence services is especially evident at Facebook’s parent company, Meta, where no less than nine former CIA agents and 6 former intelligence employees of other federal agencies are or have been employed.
Jim Hanson, president of information war analytics and consulting firm WorldStrat, told The Post Meta was particularly thinking about bringing G-men and girls on board after the 2016 presidential election.
“Those that are ideologically aligned with the woke up left saw the danger of Trump and desired to influence it, and the way in which they may have the best impact was by taking on our shared information space,” he said. “And so they moved into the community. And so they succeeded.”
“The flexibility of Americans to acquire information that doesn’t go through a left-wing lens is non-existent,” he added. “You may’t ask a matter online that does not come back to you with a solution filtered by leftists.”
Meta’s chief “disinformation” manager, Aaron Berman, is a former CIA analytics manager who spent 15 years at “The Company”—even writing the president’s every day briefings.
Others include Scott Stern, Meta’s senior trust and security risk intelligence manager, who spent greater than seven years on the FBI heading “high-stakes operational arrangements for complex and ambiguous foreign counterterrorism operations.” in keeping with his LinkedIn page.
Stern joined Meta in January 2020 to assist develop algorithms to combat “misinformation” in addition to more traditional FBI activities reminiscent of child safety and counter-terrorism.
![This has raised concerns about the influence of their former agencies on the social media giants.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/aaron-berman-featured.jpg?w=1024)
Yet one more is Facebook’s senior “creator fairness and wellbeing” strategist Corey Ponder, who describes in his LinkedIn profile how he spent greater than six years on the CIA—most of which he spent as a “senior targeting analyst.”
This work involves identifying and assessing “security vulnerabilities and technology trends, combining technical operations and development activities to assemble intelligence on our country’s threats” in keeping with the CIA recruitment website.
Other former CIA employees include Bryan Weisbard, Meta’s director of strategy and operations; Kris Rose, board member accountable for the supervisory board project from March 2020 to October 2021; and Hagan Barnett, a former CIA contractor who in keeping with LinkedIn runs “harmful content operations” at Meta.
It is not just Meta decision makers who’ve intelligence connections; some of their top tech guys do it too.
Cameron Harris, Meta’s “workflow risk project manager,” had previously spent 4 years as a CIA analyst. On Thursday, he wrote on LinkedIn that he was “honored” to be featured in articles exposing former intelligence agents now working for social media entities.
“If only my highschool civics teacher…could see me now!” he wrote.
Mike Torrey spent greater than spent eight years on the CIA as a senior analyst “leading evaluation and efforts to counter cyber threats” before joining Meta in September 2018 as a forensic security engineer.
And in March 2022 Amarpreet Ghuman joined Meta to work in “product integrity” and “elections” after six years as an FBI analyst.
“With so many ex-intelligence employees, Big Tech just becomes… an extension of the intelligence community,” said Bill Ottman, founder and CEO of social media platform Minds. “It’s just inappropriate.”
Based on Ottman, while a single candidate’s past government jobs don’t preclude him from hiring that person, he is worried in regards to the apparent trend of hiring shadowy former government officials.
“If some ex-intelligence official got here to attempt to work for us, I’d probably just say no, simply because it’s even well worth the risk?” he said. “Why should I worry about something like a reverse channel happening?
“Not every former intelligence worker will proceed their relationship with the CIA after leaving, but you simply do not know.”
Ottman argued that having many senior social media staff linked to federal intelligence agencies puts not only free speech but additionally privacy and potentially national security in danger.
“For instance, on Twitter all [direct messages] are open to all moderators,” he said. “There are heads of state who talk on Twitter, politicians who talk on Twitter. That some random social media employee has access to it, or potentially the intelligence community has direct access to it, can be an enormous concern.”