According to the article, the federal government has spent 1 million $$ collecting "suspicious memes". The plan is known as "Truthy", and it's goal is to "mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda, and assist in the preservation of open debate." In other words, the government gets to decide what political material can and cannot be posted on the internet.
Our tax dollars at work, ladies and gents. It's not like the 1st amendment guarantees freedom of speech or anything.
transitive verb
1
:
to cause to become less harsh or hostile :
mollify <aggressiveness may be mitigated or … channeled — Ashley Montagu>
2
a :
to make less severe or painful :
alleviate
b :
extenuate
— mit·i·ga·tion
noun
— mit·i·ga·tive
adjective
— mit·i·ga·tor
noun
— mit·i·ga·to·ry
adjective
source: merriam-webster.com
I still maintain that the government has no place in this whatsoever. Even allowing that they may not be aiming toward outright censorship (and I think that's being generous), this still gives them more power than they should have.
If it's just a blog or something like that countering other political blogs, then fine. I'd hope that's all it is. But I seriously doubt it. I don't think the government is just going to come right out and say they're going to censor something, not if they don't want backlash. They're going to go about it in a roundabout way. That's how politics works.
I'm a libertarian, not a conspiracy theorist. *shrug* Normally I stay out of politics and take political news with a grain of salt. But as freedom of the people and the preservation of our rights is the basis of my political beliefs, this concerns me greatly. I do hope I'm wrong, but I don't trust the government to stay within it's bounds.
If someone posts something on Twitter, that is a public forum, it's in the public domain. If someone else (or the Nat'l Sci. Foundation) wants to collect those Tweets and put them on a web site, that's freedom of speech as well. Agree that if they tried to erase content from private citizen's Twitter account that would be a violation.
Indiana University is involved somehow so we know that the contract went to extreme leftists.
Of course, the government is going to use this to collect evidence for hate speech crimes and to collect evidence that people are saying something that the professors at IU think is misleading.
Soon the FBI will be coming to your door and saying that AG Holder needs to see you--never mind that it is 2 AM--you will be going home again in a few hours, days, months, years, decades....
It is not that they want to censor it is that they are collecting information on the opposition.
The Obamma government has totalitarian mindset.
That has been proven by their use of the IRS to target groups they believe might be against the Obamma seizure of power. If he is followed by someone of like mindset, Hillary for example, then we may well have a revolution in this country.
Some states are finally beginning to kick back a little.
Hopefully that kickback will increase as the Feds grasp for more power.