Four of the largest social media platforms, Google, Twitter, Meta, and TikTok have hired 248 ex-US government employees over five years, according to a Daily Caller investigation into hiring practices at the search and social media giants.
Google was the most enthusiastic, 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 – including 20 from the FBI. TikTok took in 25 ex-feds, despite the Biden administration’s recent ban on using the app on any government device.
Claiming that “the revolving door” between the tech industry and government has been a “feature of DC for as long as I can remember,” former US Deputy Associate Attorney General Reed Rubinstein told the Daily Caller that the alliance between the two should nevertheless leave Americans concerned.
“The integration of Big Tech and the national security state… really it’s dystopian, it’s terrifying. They have enough data to show that power, which is immense, will be abused,” he said, warning that “right now, there is no effective check on it.”
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’s acquisition of the platform.
“A lot of the censorship of conservative accounts” 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’ private conversations to the agency in alleged violation of the First Amendment and without probable cause. These “leads” 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.