Secret Service Agents Monitored OnlyFans, Emerging Social Media Sites

Recently, the Secret Service agents monitored OnlyFans, a subscription website, and other emerging social media platforms like Twitch, Pinterest, and Parler for potential threats. These heavily redacted documents, obtained through a public records request by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, required agents to analyze the list of Twitter and Instagram accounts for risks against Secret Service protectees.

The briefing sheets, which date back to December 2020, cited possible risks on January 6, 2021, when the protesters stormed the United States Capitol Building over allegations of election fraud. The documents show that many accounts were private or inactive, and at least one OnlyFans account was deactivated by the platform.

According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook typically cultivate toxic political environments characterized by violent rhetoric. However, OnlyFans and Pinterest are not known for threats against the Secret Service. Thus, it is unclear why these accounts were monitored, sometimes daily, as the nature of the threats and account names remain redacted.

The Secret Service is a federal law enforcement agency that falls under the Department of Homeland Security. Its primary duty is to protect domestic political leaders and visiting heads of state. Agents often scan social media platforms to detect possible threats against officials and their families. Although federal involvement in social media content moderation has been revealed recently, as Elon Musk released several emails highlighting Twitter’s censorship decisions, it remains unclear to what extent intelligence agencies are monitoring social media platforms outside of usual intelligence gathering discourse.

Twitter executives have leveraged shadow banning and outright suspensions to limit the visibility of some accounts, especially those over perceived hateful language or supposed public health misinformation. While Twitter executives insist that no censorship or shadow banning of conservatives had ever occurred on the platform, media outlets have spent years uncritically repeating their claims, mocking conservatives who insist that traffic on their pages is artificially subdued.