The government wants to study ‘social pollution’ on Twitter

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Millions of people without health insurance = meh
OBAMA'S READING MUH TWEETS??? = WTF NO

^^^ republican logic

The money spent on this could probably buy health insurance for a hundred people.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

This is not political correctness running riot. The study of the online proliferation of racism, neo-nazism, fascism, conspiracy mongering and misogyny is very important. Maybe your age blinds you from the reality of internet subcultures but there are deepening networks online which are corrosive to society. This has little to do with the GOP: women are threatened online on a regular basis, people of color are threatened online on a regular basis and these threats often manifest in verbal harassment, stalking and the release of private information. The anonymity of the internet provides shelter for deviant communities and it's important that the government funds scientific studies that give us insight into these communities.

To address bedstuy: I think that this study is more easily criticized without expanding upon the purpose of the study. Studying social media would be a poor use of governments funds if it did not have a easily demonstrated public purpose, which it obviously does.

Except the "study" has little to do with "the online proliferation of racism, neo-nazism, fascism, conspiracy mongering and misogyny" (and even if it did, it's still wrong, as even abhorent things like supposed racism and neo-nazism are protected by the First Amendment).  From the piece:

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The government has no business estimating people's partisanship and whether it thinks certain political memes are true.  Which memes do you think the Obama administration's lackeys do you think will determine are "false"?  Certainly not "progressive" memes.  And why should the government or its agents be keeping a dossier on people's partisanship?  That's essentially the government monitoring the political beliefs of its citizens and negatively labeling those who disagree.  Is an enemies list far behind?  

I don't agree with the American conception of "free speech" and I'm not arguing with the a priori assumption that racism or misogyny should be protected by the government, sorry.

There is obviously a public purpose in this study. You're latching onto strawmen characterizations of the Obama administration that have no basis in reality because you don't think that understanding civic involvement in an unexplored terrain has an important purpose for the maintenance of a democratic system.

Why should taxpayer money go to this at all? Why can't academia study this? So the government has a "public purpose" in researching bigotry online. What is the point? What are they going to do about it? Outside of making terroristic threats (already illegal and frequently prosecuted) what are they constitutionally able to do? Are they going to target every asshat who makes a racist youtube comment with this information?

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Why should taxpayer money go to this at all? Why can't academia study this? So the government has a "public purpose" in researching bigotry online. What is the point? What are they going to do about it? Outside of making terroristic threats (already illegal and frequently prosecuted) what are they constitutionally able to do? Are they going to target every asshat who makes a racist youtube comment with this information?

Where do you think most of the money in academia comes from? The government gives research grants to groups at universities to study things. Occasionally private companies give said grants, but it's usually the federal government.

Granted that a large amount of funding goes to the higher education system, but once basic administrative costs are covered I don't think a large amount actually reaches research. IIRC, the research deficit is covered by grants from wealthy individuals, foundations, etc.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

My final word in this thread is that Twitter is a transparent website where personal data is accessible. Commissioning an academic study of Twitter data points is not remotely comparable to NSA screening phone calls and tapping into people's private information or 1984 or fascism. Every day our data on Facebook and Twitter is mined for corporations and you expect me to be concerned by an academic study on civic involvement? Clearly, I should privilege the revenue stream of Twitter and the corporate earnings of Walmart over the insights of academia!

I refer you to an episode of South Park, titled "Lets Go Gov!" I don't know if you watch the show, but a major theme of the episode was Cartmen infiltrating the NSA and publishing all of his anti-government/NSA rants and acts of sabotage on Twitter.

I don't oppose the collection of data, I just oppose the fact that money is being squandered on a research project like this when we have hospitals unprepared for CNN's projected Ebola panic, a border that is wide open, a second war in Iraq brewing, and a crumbling infastructure. This money is a drop in the bucket-maybe 0.0001% total of the deficit, but just because a problem exists that needs a massive amount of work to correct doesn't mean it should be allowed to get worse.

I am a supporter of abolishing the National Endowment of the Arts for that reason. It just seems so pointless to the average person who has bigger problems on their hands than institutionalized misogamy in video games, or online vulgarity/bigotry/bullying.

My final word in this thread is that Twitter is a transparent website where personal data is accessible. Commissioning an academic study of Twitter data points is not remotely comparable to NSA screening phone calls and tapping into people's private information or 1984 or fascism. Every day our data on Facebook and Twitter is mined for corporations and you expect me to be concerned by an academic study on civic involvement? Clearly, I should privilege the revenue stream of Twitter and the corporate earnings of Walmart over the insights of academia!

Hell may have frozen over, but I agree with you DFB. If this were a marketing department of a media corporation funding the study no one would bat an eye despite the fact that it would make no difference at all in how it's carried out.

But a marketing company is a private institution using their own money to collect data made public by other people. I don't oppose that. I oppose the state simply wasting their time on this, but Google can waste their time all they want.