FBI Director Chris Wray claimed in an interview Tuesday that the bureau is not in the business of policing the truth on social media platforms, which stands in contrast to a revelation in the Twitter Files that the bureau put pressure on Twitter to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story.
“The FBI does not, is not in the business of functioning as the truth police,” Wray claimed. “We don’t tell social media companies to censor anything or remove account information.”
Fox News anchor Bret Baier pushed back on the claim, noting the contents of what were contained in the Twitter Files.
“I mean, there was an FBI request numerous times. Taibbi puts it out. FBI San Francisco request to ban certain accounts. Twitter personnel in this case went on to look for reasons to suspend all four accounts that the FBI wanted to ban or suspend,” Baier said. “Was — is it appropriate to flag social media accounts for — on Twitter or elsewhere due to politics or government policies when it comes to COVID? Is it appropriate in any way? You’re saying it doesn’t happen, but there’s evidence that it had.”
“We don’t tell social media companies to ban accounts,” Wray claimed. “What we do is tell social media companies about information that we have about foreign disinformation campaigns by foreign actors, by foreign intelligence services.”
WATCH:
TRANSCRIPT:
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: So let’s talk about the FBI and what you told big tech, or some agents did, about the authenticity and provenance of Hunter Biden’s laptop. What about that, from an FBI perspective?
CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: The FBI does not, is not in the business of functioning as the truth police.
BAIER: Understood.
WRAY: We don’t tell social media companies to censor anything or remove account information.
BAIER: Well, the Twitter files suggest something different.
I mean, there was an FBI request numerous times. Taibbi puts it out. FBI San Francisco request to ban certain accounts. Twitter personnel in this case went on to look for reasons to suspend all four accounts that the FBI wanted to ban or suspend.
Was — is it appropriate to flag social media accounts for — on Twitter or elsewhere due to politics or government policies when it comes to COVID? Is it appropriate in any way? You’re saying it doesn’t happen, but there’s evidence that it had.
WRAY: We don’t tell social media companies to ban accounts.
BAIER: But you suggest?
WRAY: What we do is tell social media companies about information that we have about foreign disinformation campaigns by foreign actors, by foreign intelligence services.
And those companies then make decisions about what, if anything, they want to do about it.
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