\u2026 And if he does, the outlook is worse.<\/h2>\n
According to both the Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI),\u00a0via Chairman Mark Warner<\/a>, and the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI)\u00a0via Mike Turner<\/a>, the Chinese social media platform TikTok represents a \u201cnational security risk<\/em>\u201d to the United States.\u00a0 South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, soon to be the vice-presidential candidate for the DeSantis-Noem 2024 ticket, has also called TikTok a national security threat and\u00a0banned it in the state<\/a>.\u00a0Now, think about that carefully<\/strong>.<\/p>\n What is it about a social media app that allows short video sharing that would constitute a national security risk?\u00a0 The answer is not about dog and cat videos, or dancing diatribes or funny, weird or goofy content; nor is the national security risk attached to any data of the app users or content providers.\u00a0 The national security risk is found in the ability to influence public opinion that is not under the control of the United States government, or more specifically the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS).<\/p>\n The need for control is a reaction to fear.\u00a0 TikTok, as a social media platform, is not considered a national security threat because the Chinese government can control it.\u00a0 TikTok is considered a national security threat because the United States government\u00a0does not<\/em>\u00a0control it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For several years CTH has been outlining the relationship between DHS and social media.\u00a0 Currently, the headlines are filled with stories about Twitter and revelations of censorship and government influence coming from the purchase of the platform by Elon Musk.\u00a0 I promise you things are not what they seem.<\/p>\n Let me put some context to the dynamic that will hopefully clarify what is going on, and perhaps the context will help explain what you are seeing and what you are not seeing as this unfolds.\u00a0 There are going to be a lot of citations to fill in the details and understanding the modern Fourth Branch of Government is critical.\u00a0 The bigger picture also explains why SSCI Chairman Mark Warner said \u201cpeople will die<\/em><\/a>\u201d if the seized Trump Mar-a-Lago documents become public.<\/p>\n \u2666 Elevator Speech:<\/strong>\u00a0Twitter is to the U.S. government as TikTok is to China. The overarching dynamic is the need to control public perceptions and opinions. DHS has been in ever increasing control of Twitter since the public-private partnership was formed in 2011\/2012.\u00a0 Jack Dorsey lost control and became owner emeritus; arguably, Elon Musk has no idea (you\u2019ll see proof toward the end).<\/p>\n \u2026\u201dThe metaphorical Jack had a great idea, open a coffee shop where the beverages were free and use internal advertising as the income subsidy to operate the business.\u00a0 Crowds came for the free coffee, comfy couches, fellowship, conversation and enjoyment.<\/em><\/p>\n It didn\u2019t matter where Jack got the coffee, how he paid for it, or didn\u2019t, or what product advertising the customers would be exposed to while there.\u00a0 Few people thought about such things.\u00a0 Curiously, it didn\u2019t matter what size the crowd was; in the backroom of Jack\u2019s Coffee Shop they were able to generate massive amounts of never-ending free coffee at extreme scales.<\/em><\/p>\n Over time, using the justification of parking lot capacity and township regulations, not everyone would be able to park and enter.\u00a0 Guards were placed at the entrance to pre-screen customers.\u00a0 Some were denied.\u00a0 A debate began.\u201d\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n Here\u2019s what happened\u2026.<\/p>\n In\/around 2011 and 2012 the U.S. Government, Obama administration and the U.S. State Dept., came into Jack\u2019s Coffee Shop and asked him for help.<\/p>\n The govt officials needed to deliver massive amounts of coffee to their allies in Egypt, Libya and the middle east to support the Arab Spring party.\u00a0 Jack told the officials he was willing to help but didn\u2019t have the capacity to deliver on that scale.\u00a0 The officials told Jack not to worry, they would handle that aspect \u2013 he just needed to agree to the partnership and let them utilize his business.\u00a0\u00a0Jack agreed<\/strong>.<\/p>\n [Note<\/strong>, the timing here is not accidental.\u00a0 The operational agreement happened at the same time DHS was fine tuning the domestic surveillance systems to monitor social media platforms and target political opposition.\u00a0See The Fourth Branch.<\/a>]<\/p>\n Over the next several weeks, months and eventually years, Jack watched as hundreds of new employees flooded into the business to facilitate the rapid expansion.\u00a0 Along with a myriad of new faces, new equipment was delivered and soon Jack found himself looking at heavy industrial equipment erecting large buildings in the back lots of the property.\u00a0 Coffee urns were replaced with massive industrial coffee delivery systems that far exceeded anything Jack ever imagined.<\/p>\n Business was booming, but slowly Jack realized he had lost control.\u00a0 Jack was riding a dragon.<\/p>\n As the years progressed, thousands of new employees moved into the offices of the new buildings and massive pipelines were producing incredible scales of coffee.\u00a0 Jack noted offices of the United Nations Human Rights Commission were now creating unique blends of coffee for international distribution, and the European Commission had an entire suite of specially trained coffee production engineers creating alternate combinations and flavors.<\/p>\n By 2018 Jack had essentially become an \u201cowner emeritus<\/em>,\u201d his name was on the shingle, but the day-to-day operation of Jack\u2019s Magic Coffee Shop had turned into an industrial park complex.<\/p>\n Jack saw his personal wealth attached to the success of the business, but operationally his only responsibility was traveling to symposiums and venues where he would stand on stage and wax philosophically about the future of a coffee delivery organization he no longer controlled.\u00a0 Day-to-day operations were now controlled by experts in the scale of massive industrial coffee.\u00a0 Those experts came from the Dept of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n [The Intercept<\/a>] \u2013 [\u2026] Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to\u00a0meeting minutes<\/a>\u00a0and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cPlatforms have got to get comfortable with gov\u2019t. It\u2019s really interesting how hesitant they remain,\u201d Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in\u00a0February.<\/em><\/p>\n In a\u00a0March meeting<\/a>, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government. Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that \u201cwe need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.\u201d (read more<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n Experts could now use direct portals to the facility to operate the coffee production systems remotely, with a limited number of\u00a0specially trained (FBI) coffee engineers<\/a>\u00a0doing the laborious tasks and maintenance at the facility.<\/p>\n The badges were intimidating to Jack who went to sleep every night under the realization he no longer had any clue about how the coffee shop communication business was operating.<\/p>\n [\u2026]\u00a0\u00a0The extent to which the DHS initiatives affect Americans\u2019 daily social feeds is unclear. During the 2020 election, the government flagged numerous posts as suspicious, many of which were then taken down, documents cited in the Missouri attorney general\u2019s\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0disclosed. And a 2021 report by the Election Integrity Partnership at Stanford University found that of nearly 4,800 flagged items, technology platforms took action on 35 percent \u2014 either removing, labeling, or soft-blocking speech, meaning the users were only able to view content after bypassing a warning screen. The\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0was done \u201cin consultation with CISA,\u201d the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.<\/em><\/p>\n Prior to the 2020 election, tech companies including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media met on a monthly basis with the FBI, CISA, and other government representatives. According to NBC News, the meetings were part of an initiative, still ongoing,\u00a0between the private sector and government<\/a>\u00a0to discuss how firms would handle misinformation during the election. (keep reading<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n After several years of increasing distance from the Coffee Shop operation he initially started, eventually Jack decided it was silly to own an industrial coffee delivery system that he didn\u2019t control.\u00a0 So, Jack decided ot sell his shingle to someone else.<\/p>\n Enter, Elon Musk.<\/p>\n Billionaire Elon Musk, a man intimately familiar with large industrial systems and government, had been watching the disgruntled visitors to Jack\u2019s Coffee Shop who were no longer permitted to enter.\u00a0 Musk saw an inequity between the amount of coffee that was available, and the scarcity of the coffee amid a community blacklisted by the operational executives and managers of the shop.<\/p>\n With expressions of both interest and fellowship, Mr. Elon Musk told Mr. Jack Dorsey he would take ownership of Jack\u2019s Magic Coffee Shop and remove any discriminatory guards that were now controlling permitted entry.\u00a0 Jack had no aversion to Elon and eventually a deal was brokered.<\/p>\n After the transfer of sale was complete, Mr. Musk fired many of the guards and then set about checking the payroll to identify which group of shop employees were actually involved in the generation of coffee, and which employees were involved in promotion of the industrial coffee delivery system that were no longer needed.<\/p>\n Within this process Elon Musk begins to discover the complex nature of what, at least at the surface, appeared to be an uncomplicated coffee shop.\u00a0 Why is there a 500-room glass walled office building on the backside of the coffee shop?\u00a0 What is going on in that building that has anything to do with selling coffee?<\/p>\n If you\u2019ve read this far, you might think my metaphor is a little over the top.\u00a0 Perhaps you thought that when I originally started saying there was much more to Jack\u2019s Magic Coffee Shop a long time ago.<\/p>\n Well, thankfully, someone of reasonably intelligent curiosity finally asked Elon Musk the right question<\/strong>\u00a0about this direct portal from DHS into the coffee shop. How Mr. Musk replied might surprise you.\u00a0 You see, the Jack\u2019s Magic Coffee Shop metaphor is evidenced in the Musk response.<\/p>\n Twitter owner Elon Musk has no idea what the DHS portal into the coffee shop is for.\u00a0\u00a0WATCH:<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theconservativetreehouse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/mckesson-jack-and-kaepernick-black-lives-matter-meeting.jpg\")
<\/a>To explain the background activity of Twitter in a way that readers could understand, I used the metaphor of Twitter as\u00a0Jack\u2019s Magic Coffee Shop<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theconservativetreehouse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/social-media-thought-police-2.jpg\")
<\/a>To streamline the operational efficiencies as the industrial coffee system grew, direct portals between the Washington DC government offices and Jack\u2019s Magic Coffee shop were created.\u00a0 Officials no longer needed to travel to the location of Jack\u2019s Coffee Shop in order to operate the valves, mixers, grinders and systems to generate the scale of blends being produced.<\/p>\n