Journalist Matt Taibbi released the twelfth installment of “The Twitter Files” Tuesday afternoon that documented the relationship between government agencies and the social media platform.

The latest batch of files came roughly an hour after Taibbi released the eleventh installment of “The Twitter Files” which detailed what led up to the Intelligence Community cozying up with Twitter.

“By 2020, Twitter was struggling with the problem of public and private agencies bypassing them and going straight to the media with lists of suspect accounts,” Taibbi wrote. “In February, 2020, as COVID broke out, the Global Engagement Center — a fledgling analytic/intelligence arms of the State Department — went to the media with a report called, ‘Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns.’”

“The GEC flagged accounts as ‘Russian personas and proxies’ based on criteria like, ‘Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,’ blaming ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute,’ and ‘attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA,’” Taibbi wrote. “State also flagged accounts that retweeted news that Twitter banned the popular U.S. ZeroHedge, claiming the episode ‘led to another flurry of disinformation narratives.’ [Zero Hedge] had done reports speculating that the virus had lab origin.”

Taibbi showed examples of how the GEC’s report led to more explosive headlines that helped shape the narrative around the origins of the pandemic during its early days.

Trust and Safety Chief Yoel Roth even complained that media trying to find ways to tie pandemic mis/disinformation back to Russia was “revelatory of their motivations.”

8.“WE’RE HAPPY TO WORK DIRECTLY WITH YOU ON THIS, INSTEAD OF NBC.” Roth tried in vain to convince outsider researchers like the Clemson lab to check with them before pushing stories about foreign interference to media. pic.twitter.com/AHg4DUbEql

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

“The GEC report appeared based on DHS data circulated earlier that week, and included accounts that followed ‘two or more’ Chinese diplomatic accounts,” Taibbi continued. “They reportedly ended up with a list ‘nearly 250,000’ names long, and included Canadian officials and a CNN account.”

“Roth saw GEC’s move as an attempt by the GEC to use intel from other agencies to ‘insert themselves’ into the content moderation club that included Twitter, Facebook, the FBI, DHS, and others,” Taibbi continued.

13.The GEC was soon agreeing to loop in Twitter before going public, but they were using a technique that had boxed in Twitter before. “The delta between when they share material and when they go to the press continues to be problematic,” wrote one comms official. pic.twitter.com/ONn9BfYybi

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

Twitter disagreed with the Trump administration that communist China was sowing disinformation about the pandemic on the platform, Taibbi said.

“When the FBI informed Twitter the GEC wanted to be included in the regular ‘industry call’ between companies like Twitter and Facebook and the DHS and FBI, Twitter leaders balked at first,” Taibbi wrote. “Facebook, Google, and Twitter executives were united in opposition to GEC’s inclusion, with ostensible reasons including, ‘The GEC’s mandate for offensive IO to promote American interests.’”

“A deeper reason was a perception that unlike the DHS and FBI, which were ‘apolitical,’ as Roth put it, the GEC was ‘political,’ which in Twitter-ese appeared to be partisan code,” Taibbi continued. “‘I think they thought the FBI was less Trumpy,’ is how one former DOD official put it.”

“After spending years rolling over for Democratic Party requests for ‘action’ on ‘Russia-linked’ accounts, Twitter was suddenly playing tough. Why? Because, as Roth put it, it would pose ‘major risks’ to bring the GEC in, ‘especially as the election heats up,’” Taibbi said. “When senior lawyer Stacia Cardille tried to argue against the GEC’s inclusion to the FBI, the words resonated ‘with Elvis, not Laura,’ i.e. with agent Elvis Chan, not Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) unit chief Laura Dehmlow.”

“Eventually the FBI argued, first to Facebook, for a compromise solution: other USG agencies could participate in the ‘industry’ calls, but the FBI and DHS would act as sole ‘conduits,’” Taibbi continued. “Roth reached out to Chan with concerns about letting the ‘press-happy’ GEC in, expressing hope they could keep the ‘circle of trust small.’”

Chan suggested that the industry could “rely on the FBI to be the belly button of the USG,” meaning it would get the information from Twitter and distribute it to other agencies as it saw fit.

Numerous agencies flooded Twitter with requests to take action on accounts.

“They also received an astonishing variety of requests from officials asking for individuals they didn’t like to be banned,” Taibbi wrote. “Here, the office for Democrat and House Intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asks Twitter to ban journalist Paul Sperry.”

“Even Twitter declined to honor Schiff’s request at the time,” Taibbi continued. “Sperry was later suspended, however.”

28.“WE DON’T DO THIS” Even Twitter declined to honor Schiff’s request at the time. Sperry was later suspended, however. pic.twitter.com/9PX2Zw5Nzj

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

Taibbi continued by showing how the volume of requests from government agencies overwhelmed officials at Twitter, who were sometimes pestered by agents to take action on accounts.

37.“I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR WORK LOAD”: Requests poured in from FBI offices all over the country, day after day, hour after hour: If Twitter didn’t act quickly, questions came: “Was action taken?” “Any movement?” pic.twitter.com/KAu2YesocC

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 3, 2023

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was sworn in for a second term Tuesday as the 46th governor of the Sunshine State after defeating his Democratic opponent in the 2022 midterm elections last year.

DeSantis, 44, a former congressman and U.S. Navy veteran of the war in Iraq, became one of the nation’s most high-profile governors in his first term, which secured his 2022 victory over challenger Charlie Crist with nearly 60% of the vote.

“From the Space Coast to the Sun Coast, from St. Johns to St. Lucie, from the streets of Hialeah to the Speedway in Daytona, from the Okeechobee all the way up to the Micanopy, freedom lives here,” DeSantis said in his inaugural address, delivered from the steps of the Historic Capitol in Tallahassee.

In his speech, which lasted approximately 15 minutes, DeSantis boasted about his administration’s first-term successes, which he said were made “more difficult by the floundering federal establishment in Washington, D.C.”

Such successes DeSantis spoke about that drove Americans to Florida included lowering taxes, reforming education, and ending judicial activism “by appointing jurists who understand the proper role of a judge is to apply the laws written — not legislate from the bench.”

“Over the past few years, as so many states in our country ground their citizens down, we in Florida lifted our people up,” DeSantis said. “When other states consigned their peoples’ freedom to the dustbin, Florida stood strongly as freedom’s linchpin.”

“When the world lost its mind, and common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue, Florida was a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom for our fellow Americans and for people around the world,” he added.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported last month that Florida became the fastest-growing state in 2022, with an annual population increase of 1.9%, resulting in a total resident population of 22,244,823.

“While Florida has often been among the largest-gaining states,” Kristie Wilder, a demographer in the Population Division at the Census Bureau, said in a news release, “this was the first time since 1957 that Florida has been the state with the largest percent increase in population.”

During his inaugural address Tuesday afternoon, DeSantis further slammed the federal establishment for enacting pandemic policies based more on ideology and politics than on sound science.

“And this has eroded freedom and stunted commerce,” DeSantis said. “It is recklessly facilitated open borders making a mockery of the rule of law, allowing massive amounts of narcotics to infect our states, importing criminal aliens, and green-lighting the flow of millions of illegal aliens into our country — burdening communities and taxpayers throughout the land.”

The governor added, “it has imposed an energy policy that has crippled our nation’s domestic production,” which he said has spiked the cost of energy for American citizens and eroded national energy security.

DeSantis continued criticizing states and cities nationwide that embraced “faddish ideology at the expense of enduring principles,” which the governor said harmed public safety, burdened taxpayers, and imposed medical “authoritarianism in the guise of pandemic mandates and restrictions that lack a scientific basis.”

“This bizarre but prevalent ideology that permeates these policy measures purports to act in the name of justice for the marginalized, but it frowns upon American institutions,” he said. “It rejects merit and achievement, and it advocates identity essentialism.”

“We reject this woke ideology,” he added. “We seek normalcy, not philosophical lunacy. We will not allow reality, facts, and truth to become optional — we will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”

DeSantis, who has generally supported former President Trump even as his growing popularity seemed to grate on the 45th commander-in-chief and Florida resident, has been guarded about his future plans. During his address, he did not mention any potential 2024 Republican presidential bid.

NBC News reported that Republicans who spoke with the outlet suggested it was a matter of when, not if, the governor would launch a presidential campaign.

DeSantis called the D.C. bureaucracy a sprawling, unaccountable, and out-of-touch authority looming over the American people, producing a dismal and pessimistic view of the country’s future.

However, Florida’s governor said the Sunshine State “is proof positive that We, The People, are not destined for failure.”

“Decline is a choice, success is attainable, and freedom is worth fighting for,” DeSantis said.

Hank Berrien contributed to this report.