News - World: US main social media platforms have been hiring “an alarming number” of ex-FBI agents and other former “feds and spies" to run their operations, media reported.

An investigative analysis of employment and recruitment websites conducted by news outlet MintPress News earlier this week showed that Twitter was hiring an alarming number of former feds and spies.

The American "social media giant, in recent years, recruited dozens of individuals from the national security state to work in the fields of security, trust, safety and content,” according to the research.

“Chief amongst these is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI is generally known as the domestic security and intelligence forces. However, it has recently expanded its remit into cyberspace,” MintPress wrote.

“Twitter also directly employs active army officers. In 2019, Gordon Macmillan, the head of an editorial for the entire Europe, Middle East, and Africa region was revealed to be an officer in the British Army’s notorious 77th Brigade – a unit dedicated to the online warfare and psychological operations. This bombshell news was steadfastly ignored across the media,” the outlet revealed.

The investigation also found that Twitter was not the only social media platform that was “cultivating such an intimate relationship with the FBI and other groups belonging to the secret state.”

“Facebook, for example, has entered into a formal partnership with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, whereby the latter holds significant influence over 2.9 billion users’ news feeds, helping to decide what content to promote and what content to suppress,” it said, adding that the company has also employed former NATO Press Secretary Ben Nimmo as its head of intelligence.

TikTok, according to the outlet, has been “filling its organization with alumni of the Atlantic Council, NATO, the CIA and the State Department.”

Reddit and various media, including Thomson Reuters and multiple US TV channels have also been actively employing former spies, MintPress News claims.

The issue of online spying has been the main concern for the masses since former US National Security Agency (NSA) member and whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the US was rolling out mass surveillance on the entire world.

Snowden began leaking classified intelligence documents in June 2013, revealing that NSA had been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans and foreign nationals as well as political leaders around the world.

Source: Press TV