... there’s this long-running research program at Indiana University called “Truthy,” ... Among other projects, Truthy has looked at how rumors spread, how trends develop on Twitter, and how it might be possible to identify whether Twitter content is being generated by a bot rather than by actual people. It’s valuable, interesting research that is aimed solely at making sense of how people actually use this here series of tubes.
Ah, but what it it’s not? What if, as a Washington Free Beacon article claimed in August, Truthy is really an Orwellian attempt to crack down on political speech The Powers That Be don’t like? [...]
And now, Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas, chair of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee — that august body devoted to serving the whims of climate deniers (such as Smith himself) and people who think evolution and the Big Bang are lies from the pit of hell — wants some answers about this dangerous threat to our liberty and why it’s aimed at suppressing the free speech of conservatives. Which, as we say, it isn’t. He sent a very stern letter Monday to National Science Foundation Director France Cordova, demanding that Cordova explain why the NSF is funding this Orwellian crackdown on Free Speech.