Four of the largest social media platforms in the US are reinforcing the ties between Big Tech and Big Brother, hiring 248 ex-government employees, according to a Daily Caller investigation into hiring practices at Google, Twitter, Meta, and TikTok.
Google was the most enthusiastic in its hiring, picking up 130 ex-agents from the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department, the outlet reported on Sunday, based on research using LinkedIn.
Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, welcomed 47 former government employees into its ranks, while Twitter absorbed 46 \u2013 including 20 from the FBI. TikTok took in 25 ex-feds, despite the Biden administration\u2019s recent ban on using the app on any government device.
Claiming that \u201cthe revolving door\u201d between the tech industry and government has been a \u201cfeature of DC for as long as I can remember,\u201d former US Deputy Associate Attorney General Reed Rubinstein told the Daily Caller that the alliance between the two should nevertheless leave Americans concerned.
\u201cThe integration of Big Tech and the national security state\u2026 really it\u2019s dystopian, it\u2019s terrifying. They have enough data to show that power, which is immense, will be abused,\u201d he said, warning that \u201cright now, there is no effective check on it.\u201d
READ MORE:\u2002Twitter Files revealed growing government control \u2013 Matt Taibbi
Long suspected by researchers, the cozy relationship between Big Tech and Big Brother was exposed last year in Missouri v. Biden, which revealed that representatives of no fewer than 12 US government agencies were regularly meeting with the major platforms to craft desired narratives and silence others. The extent of this relationship was further confirmed with the release of internal communications from Twitter, following Elon Musk\u2019s acquisition of the platform.
\u201cA lot of the censorship of conservative accounts\u201d on social media coincided with an uptick in hiring of former FBI employees across Big Tech starting in 2018, agency whistleblower Steve Friend told the Daily Caller.
Last year, Justice Department whistleblowers revealed that Facebook was reporting users to the FBI for merely posting content critical of the government, forwarding users\u2019 private conversations to the agency in alleged violation of the First Amendment and without probable cause. These \u201cleads\u201d were then used by the FBI to legally obtain access to the conversations already in their possession and launch nuisance investigations against law-abiding citizens, the whistleblowers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n