Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Shellenberger: Twitter found minimal foreign influence from FBI-flagged accounts

Michael Shellenberger · E109: 2022 Bestie Awards Live from Twitter HQ · Dec 24, 2022 · at 1:30:04

Michael Shellenberger summarizes internal communications between former Twitter executive Yoel Roth and FBI agents.

0:00 / 0:15exact quote · 15.3s

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“You'll repeatedly, you'll Roth would respond to FBI that, yeah, we looked into these accounts that you mentioned, and they were all very low follower accounts with very little activity. So they just weren't finding very much foreign influence on the Twitter platform.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Former Twitter head of trust and safety Yoel Roth repeatedly informed the FBI that accounts flagged for potential foreign influence had low follower counts and little activity, finding minimal foreign influence on Twitter.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Internal Twitter communications released as part of the Twitter Files (specifically Part 6 and Part 7 in December 2022) and subsequent Congressional testimony in February 2023 confirmed that Yoel Roth and Twitter's trust and safety team repeatedly communicated to the FBI that flagged accounts suspected of foreign influence had minimal reach, low follower counts, and low activity.

Twitter Files Part 7 (December 19, 2022) revealed a September 24, 2020 email from Twitter to FBI Agent Elvis Chan confirming that flagged Russian-linked accounts were 'largely inactive' and 'had little reach & low follower accounts'.
Twitter Files Supplemental Release (December 2022) documented Twitter informing DHS/ODNI/FBI that it had 'not observed much recent activity from official propaganda actors'.
Yoel Roth's testimony before the House Oversight Committee on February 8, 2023, confirmed that government-flagged items frequently represented minor, low-impact accounts rather than broad influence campaigns.

Checked against

[1] promarket.org [2] racket.news [3] aa.com.tr [4] aa.com.tr [5] aa.com.tr [6] amgreatness.com [7] opindia.com [8] amgreatness.com

"Twitter Files" "Yoel Roth" "Sept 24, 2020" OR "September 24, 2020" FBI 345 "low follower" Yoel Roth FBI foreign influence low follower counts internal communications Yoel Roth FBI Twitter files low followers activity foreign influence "Twitter Files" "Yoel Roth" FBI "little reach" OR "low follower" foreign influence Matt Taibbi Twitter Files FBI low followers foreign influence Yoel Roth "Michael Shellenberger" "Yoel Roth" FBI "low follower" OR "little activity" OR "minimal"

assessed as of 2026-07-30

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

FBI Twitter Yoel Roth

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