This week President Obama launched a prominent social media campaign on behalf of net neutrality and urged the FCC to keep the Internet free and open.
The man has gall.
This is the same speech-squelcher in chief whose administration snooped on reporters; vengefully audited tea party pro-life activists and conservative election watchdogs and slow-walked the probe into the IRS witch hunt against them; entertained a government scheme to monitor story selection in TV newsrooms; and forked over $1 million to a researcher building a Twitter-snooping database.
On Monday House Committee on Science Space and Technology Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith R-Texas requested that the National Science Foundation send him all information about how and why the taxpayer-subsidized Truthy data-mining project came into existence. Its lead researcher is Filippo Menczer -- professor of informatics and computer science and the director of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research at the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing -- who is now on sabbatical at Yahoo! Labs.
Menczer and Indiana University vehemently deny that Truthy is a political watchdog a government probe of social media an attempt to suppress free speech or limit political speech or develop standards for online political speech a way to define misinformation a partisan political effort a system targeting political messages and commentary connected to conservative groups a mechanism to terminate any social media accounts or a database tracking hate speech.
But Menczer himself admits the project arose after he learned about a conservative Twitter bomb campaign against failed Senate Democratic candidate Martha Coakley in 2010. His information-gathering system bears liberal comedian Stephen Colberts neologism truthy. And the Washington Free Beacons Elizabeth Harrington reports that Menczer proclaims his support for numerous progressive advocacy groups including President Barack Obamas Organizing for Action Moveon.org Greenpeace the Sierra Club Amnesty International and True Majority.
In presentations to academic groups Menczer has specifically highlighted his teams research on conservative groups individuals and hashtags. Ive seen it. At Harvard Universitys Truthiness Conference in March 2012 for example he showed his audience the results of monitoring and mapping the hashtag #obamacare and singled out the D.C.-based Heritage Foundation for using it. His government-funded database mined information on who was retweeting #obamacare-labeled tweets and pinpointed patterns of propagation.
Menczer and company also policed Twitter users who opined that Obama supported policies that promote Sharia law. Truthy targeted pro-Sarah Palin tweets and tweets using the hashtag #tcot -- which stands for Top Conservatives on Twitter and which Ive used since 2009. The government-funded researchers also went after opponents of Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons as well as a Republican activist in Pennsylvania whose Twitter account was then shut down after Truthy identified tweets that included web links to John Boehners official congressional leadership page.
The goal Menczer explained is to detect Twitter users themes and memes early before damage is done -- that is what were trying to do. Truthy will automatically detect language and its overseers will conduct sentiment analysis to control and prevent damage.
Nope no political goals or ideological agenda there. Nothing to see here. Run along.
Menczer defends against leftwing bias by claiming that almost all of the most popular hashtags the most active accounts and the most tweeted URLs are from the right. We looked really hard for any truthy memes from the left.
Look harder pal.
As conservative radio giant Rush Limbaugh and his staff discovered (no tax grant money necessary) the astroturfed social media boycott campaign against his show for the past several years has been spearheaded by only 10 Twitter users who account for almost 70 percent of all StopRush tweets to advertisers amplified by illicit software. Moreover they found almost every communication from a StopRush activist originates from outside the state of the advertiser. These lib bots constitute a small number of extremists sending tens of thousands of tweets and other messages to bully and intimidate advertisers.
Yet there hasnt been a peep about the insidious #StopRush smear campaign from Menczer and his Obama administration-backed liberal snitch squad. Its time for some truth in Truthy advertising.
Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats Crooks & Cronies (Regnery 2010).
This week President Obama launched a prominent social media campaign on behalf of net neutrality and urged the FCC to keep the Internet free and open.
The man has gall.
This is the same speech-squelcher in chief whose administration snooped on reporters; vengefully audited tea party pro-life activists and conservative election watchdogs and slow-walked the probe into the IRS witch hunt against them; entertained a government scheme to monitor story selection in TV newsrooms; and forked over $1 million to a researcher building a Twitter-snooping database.
On Monday House Committee on Science Space and Technology Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith R-Texas requested that the National Science Foundation send him all information about how and why the taxpayer-subsidized Truthy data-mining project came into existence. Its lead researcher is Filippo Menczer -- professor of informatics and computer science and the director of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research at the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing -- who is now on sabbatical at Yahoo! Labs.
Menczer and Indiana University vehemently deny that Truthy is a political watchdog a government probe of social media an attempt to suppress free speech or limit political speech or develop standards for online political speech a way to define misinformation a partisan political effort a system targeting political messages and commentary connected to conservative groups a mechanism to terminate any social media accounts or a database tracking hate speech.
But Menczer himself admits the project arose after he learned about a conservative Twitter bomb campaign against failed Senate Democratic candidate Martha Coakley in 2010. His information-gathering system bears liberal comedian Stephen Colberts neologism truthy. And the Washington Free Beacons Elizabeth Harrington reports that Menczer proclaims his support for numerous progressive advocacy groups including President Barack Obamas Organizing for Action Moveon.org Greenpeace the Sierra Club Amnesty International and True Majority.
In presentations to academic groups Menczer has specifically highlighted his teams research on conservative groups individuals and hashtags. Ive seen it. At Harvard Universitys Truthiness Conference in March 2012 for example he showed his audience the results of monitoring and mapping the hashtag #obamacare and singled out the D.C.-based Heritage Foundation for using it. His government-funded database mined information on who was retweeting #obamacare-labeled tweets and pinpointed patterns of propagation.
Menczer and company also policed Twitter users who opined that Obama supported policies that promote Sharia law. Truthy targeted pro-Sarah Palin tweets and tweets using the hashtag #tcot -- which stands for Top Conservatives on Twitter and which Ive used since 2009. The government-funded researchers also went after opponents of Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons as well as a Republican activist in Pennsylvania whose Twitter account was then shut down after Truthy identified tweets that included web links to John Boehners official congressional leadership page.
The goal Menczer explained is to detect Twitter users themes and memes early before damage is done -- that is what were trying to do. Truthy will automatically detect language and its overseers will conduct sentiment analysis to control and prevent damage.
Nope no political goals or ideological agenda there. Nothing to see here. Run along.
Menczer defends against leftwing bias by claiming that almost all of the most popular hashtags the most active accounts and the most tweeted URLs are from the right. We looked really hard for any truthy memes from the left.
Look harder pal.
As conservative radio giant Rush Limbaugh and his staff discovered (no tax grant money necessary) the astroturfed social media boycott campaign against his show for the past several years has been spearheaded by only 10 Twitter users who account for almost 70 percent of all StopRush tweets to advertisers amplified by illicit software. Moreover they found almost every communication from a StopRush activist originates from outside the state of the advertiser. These lib bots constitute a small number of extremists sending tens of thousands of tweets and other messages to bully and intimidate advertisers.
Yet there hasnt been a peep about the insidious #StopRush smear campaign from Menczer and his Obama administration-backed liberal snitch squad. Its time for some truth in Truthy advertising.
Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats Crooks & Cronies (Regnery 2010).
