is bankrolling a database of “suspicious memes” and other “false and misleading” political ideas posted on social media.
known as “Truthy,” inspired by comedian Stephen Colbert’s concept of “truthiness.”
The ultimate goal of the project, as explained in the NSF grant, seems to include suppression of this content: “[Truthy] could mitigate the diffusion of false and misleading ideas, detect hate speech and subversive propaganda, and assist in the preservation of open debate.”
Truthy is scheduled to begin reporting users to the FBI this fall. Users will remain in the federal database “forever, regardless of their innocence or guilt, or their intentions.” said lead FBI agent Paul Horner. “This database will be shared with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies.
Facebook has also made a secret deal to report users to the FBI for creating memes and sharing them with other users.
Do they really lack self awareness to this extent, or is it one big ruse? At this rate, the United States is going to have a Meme Gestapo.