Posted on 10/22/2014 12:14:09 PM PDT by TurboZamboni
If you take to Twitter to express your views on a hot-button issue, does the government have an interest in deciding whether you are spreading "misinformation"? If you tweet your support for a candidate in the November elections, should taxpayer money be used to monitor your speech and evaluate your "partisanship"?
My guess is that most Americans would answer those questions with a resounding no. But the federal government seems to disagree. The National Science Foundation, a federal agency whose mission is to "promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity and welfare; and to secure the national defense," is funding a project to collect and analyze your Twitter data.
The project is being developed by researchers at Indiana University, and its purported aim is to detect what they deem "social pollution" and to study what they call "social epidemics," including how memes -- ideas that spread throughout pop culture -- propagate. What types of social pollution are they targeting? "Political smears," so-called "astroturfing" and other forms of "misinformation."
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
You can say the same thing about 90% of what government spends money on
Didn’t they did something like this called #attackwatch?
They ONLY targeted conservatives...
The NSF needs their budget cut by 60%.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.