Computer Scientists Say Meme Research Doesn't Threaten Free Speech

dcblogs (1096431) writes "In a letter to lawmakers Tuesday (PDF), five of the nation's top computing research organizations defended a research grant to study how information goes viral. The groups were responding to claims that the government-funded effort could help create a 1984-type surveillance state. The controversy arises over a nearly $1 million research grant to researchers at Indiana University to investigate "why some ideas cause viral explosions while others are quickly forgotten," particularly on Twitter. "We do not believe this work represents a threat to free speech or a suppression of any type of speech over the internet," the letter said. "The tools developed in the course of this research are capable of making no political judgments, no prognostications, and no editorial comments, nor do they provide any capability for exerting any control over the Twitter stream they analyze," they wrote. The controversy over Truthy may be just another sign of the ongoing deterioration between the science community and lawmakers over basic research funding as well as the science itself.

Comments

The first step to control

[cold fjord]

It's hard to control a thing without being able to analyze it. It's even better when you can accurately model it. Measures of control come afterwards.

I'm not sure that I like this being studied by the government. Use is right out.

I wonder if the Obama White House still has its political "hear something, say something" site to report dissent?

Re:The first step to control

[cold fjord]

More genuine oversight of government, a check on the executive, a Senate that might actually produce an annual budget, and a better chance of maintaining freedom? Count me in.

Re:The first step to control

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure that I like this being studied by the government.

Knowledge is a dangerous thing. It certainly has no place at our Universities!

Re: The first step to control

[dcollins117]

Constitution shmonstitution, we got us a mujorty! We can do as we likes. First up, let's repeal the goddam 15th.

I felt certain that sentence was going to end with the word 'Obamacare'

Re:The first step to control

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

That's so blatantly false I don't know where to begin. Let's start with "reckless spending": Obama is the LOWEST spender since Eisenhower. And that's those pinkos over at Forbes who say so. How about "an actual annual budget again": well, perhaps if Mitch McConnell and John Boehner hadn't been holding their breath until they turn blue to block it (and everything else Obama has proposed), we'd have had one approved. And about half a zillion federal appointments they've blocked.

The fact is, the Republican party has been systematically breaking government, ruining the economy and generally running this country into the ground for the last six years out of personal animosity for Barack Obama. I WILL grant you, however, that they have been *phenomenally* successful at blaming their systematic vandalism on him, and he's been too chickenshit to stand up to their bullying. Now that they've won a majority in the Senate as well, we can expect more show trials and hearings about hot-button non-issues like Bengazi.

A few FACTS:
1. We've now had 63 straight months of economic expansion.
2. We are currently enjoying the longest period of private sector job creation in American history.
3. Unemployment has dropped from 10.1% in October of 2009 to 5.9% and projected to reach 5.4% by summer of 2015.
4. The stock market continues to set new records since President Obama has been in office.
5. The Federal budget deficit is shrinking. Itâ(TM)s been reduced by two-thirds since 2009.
6. Under President Obama, spending has increased only 1.4% annually, the lowest rate since Eisenhower was president.
7. For 95% of American taxpayers, income taxes are lower now than just about any time in the previous 50 years.
8. Our dependence on foreign oil has shrunk due to record domestic oil production and improved fuel efficiency standards.
9. At least 7 million more Americans now have health insurance than before.
10. The Affordable Care Act has added years to the life of Medicare.
11. Since passage of the Affordable Care Act, we are seeing the slowest rate of increase in healthcare costs since 1960.
12. We currently have fewer soldiers, sailors and airmen in war zones than any time in over 10 years.
13. There have been zero successful attacks by al Qaeda on US soil since Obama became president.
14. We now successfully catch and deport more illegal immigrants than ever before.

You ARE correct, however, that Duverger's Law pretty much guarantees that a first past the post voting system will inevitably result in a two-party system.

Re:The first step to control

[Triklyn]

the executive hasn't shrunk regardless of party affiliation since... i don't know, FDR. Senate doesn't produce the budget without the house... and the do-nothing congress did more than the last two.

your freedoms are still being defined, they are codified in law and judicial precedent. Yeah, you've got the freedoms innate to you, but what you know to be true, and what protects you from the freedoms of others is two entirely different things.

Libertarians are so simplistic... yeah freedom from all government control and oversight. what happened to monopolies? What about the freedom to buy support, it's their money after all? the freedom for companies to monitor traffic going through their systems? to control their prices in collusion?

the future is messy, but we're getting their. and we won't get their in good shape if one party's only stated objective is to stonewall the leader of the other.

Re:Question

[GrahamCox]

Meme

If control is possible.

[khasim]

I think that what they will "find" is nothing more than certain criteria all have to be above a certain "threshold" and then the meme goes viral.

But those criteria will all be comprised of humans. Which they will NOT be able to predict.

Even if one meme goes viral in a certain group there will be no way to force a different meme to go viral with that same group in that same fashion.

Although I am looking forward to the names of the units of measure that they will be applying to their research. :) How many milli-LULZ before it goes viral?

Re:If control is possible.

[philgp]

How many milli-LULZ before it goes viral?

Over 9000.

That makes no sence

[giorgist]

They would rather remain without knowledge and have science not explore the boundaries. They think this will keep them safe ? All it means is that the agencies that will invest in the time and money to find this knowledge will run the show.

Einstein and the atomic bomb

[Okian Warrior]

I had a related discussion with some friends recently about what they would/wouldn't work on in their job.

Einstein and others famously regretted developing the atomic bomb.

At the time, it was thought that nuclear chain reactions were impossible because the neutrons emitted by a fissile nucleus were too fast to interact with neighboring atoms. Leó Szilárd discovered that graphite would act as a neutron moderator, slowing them down so that they could interact. Each decaying nucleus releases two(*) neutrons, each neutron causes two other nuclei to decay, and so on. Two becomes four, becomes eight, in an exponential manner.

Here's the thing. At the time, conventional wisdom felt that chain reactions were impossible; and entrenched ideas in science are hard to pry loose. If Szilárd had chosen not to publish, it would have delayed nuclear fission research for decades - possibly indefinitely.

Consider the ramifications of having a few decades of technological development before attempting to build nuclear reactors, of social development before ICBMs and Mutually Assured Destruction, and so on. We've come a long way since then - we're much closer to planetary cooperation. The conflicts of the early 20th century seem almost tribal in retrospect.

Here's the essential question: Should Szilárd have published? Knowing that his research was the keystone for nuclear weapons, should he have just kept quiet about it?

The tools make no political judgments, but unenlightened bureaucrats do. And right now there's a lot of abuse by the people in power, the people we should be able to trust with our welfare. One only has to look at elections to see how psychological research is being used - en mass - on the population for political ideology.

Would it not be better to put this research off a couple of decades so that other, more directly beneficial technologies can come first? An environment of secure communications, anonymous surfing, safe and untraceable whistle-blowing seems to be on the horizon.

We have the hindsight to see the results of Szilárd's choice. Should we choose differently?

(*) Average 2.5 neutrons per nucleus

Re:Einstein and the atomic bomb

[Anonymous Coward]

If Szilárd had chosen not to publish, it would have delayed nuclear fission research for decades - possibly indefinitely.

I see this kind of extrapolation a lot, and it's completely wrong. Science doesn't progress by the work of "geniuses". It progresses by trial and error. Szilard was the first person to observe this, that's all. It's easy to assume the second person wouldn't have come along for decades, but lots of people were working on this, so the discovery could equally have been made only a few months later. Or it may have already been made and Szilard just published first. There are plenty of examples in science and technology of two people inventing something at about the same time - Newton & Leibniz is canonical. This invention isn't even radical. We already had all the scientific models for fission, we just needed to refine the technology slightly. Inventions are far more a product of their time than they are a product of some kind of unique "genius" without whom we would never have had that invention. The process is like a chain, and the inventor is just the last link in the chain, that's all. Without him, some other guy would be the last link in the chain.

Pay attention to this, it affects your conclusions radically. Like, why Szilard and not Einstein? And what if Szilard didn't publish and then some guy in Japan figured it out, and they nuked the US, winning the war. You talk about hindsight, but all you have hindsight on is the consequences of a billion different factors working in tandem. You can't pick one strand out of the rug and say that's what holds it together.

Re:Question

[AHuxley]

A meme to the US gov is anything that could start political issues that spreads over social media, old and new media.
Great for a CIA funded color revolution around the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Historically in the US COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... would like to get in front of any trending domestic issues.
So what is a meme or trend and what would make the US gov spend cash on looking at pics and comments online?
East German news about visa needs to travel out of East Germany one night saw people standing at boarder crossings in ever larger groups.
East German guards had two options. Defend the crossing with force or open the border. Both options where in place and any correct order would have been followed.
A protester in some remote country makes a political statement and the images are seen around the world.
Who funded the protester and helped set up the perfect high definition optics of the event?
A local law enforcement official is caught turning media cameras off or is broadcast screaming at the media with military style equipment pointed up, ready for use.
Local events then go around the world. East Germany could always hope to capture the press and camera crew before a tape was broadcast.
Now a lot of people have their own HD camera equipment and low cost live streaming or remote file saving products. Removing a camera locally does not work so well anymore for local law enforcement officials. The meme gets out and trends up.
The only hope US law enforcement officials have is to fully predict and understand the trending, identify who has the accounts and prevent them from making it to any protest area.
So expect to see the US gov spend a lot in tracking down anyone who can shape social media.
Good luck even moving around in your own city if you have been noted for your social media skills.

Re:A million dollars?

[Falos]

If the money is what you consider the biggest potential impact, then yeah, you're not worth discussing priority with.

Very Fascinating

[TrollstonButterbeans]

I think understanding what goes viral would be very valuable.

What is the objection to this? Since clearly there is some objection to the study ...

I read the article and do not understand what the objection is.

Other sources of funding.

[Animats]

If all they need is $1 million to study how something goes "viral", they could probably get that much funding from Twitter, or Facebook, or Google, or any of the major ad-supported companies. Those companies probably have better data to analyze, too.

Re:Question

[cbeaudry]

Is it just my misunderstanding or is a viral video NOT a meme?

Not saying the study has this wrong, but many of the commentators seems to have this wrong.

It's NOT being studied by the government

[langelgjm]

This whole thing is a Tom Coburn-style piece of propaganda. It is an NSF GRANT to researchers at a UNIVERSITY. This has nothing to do with the federal government or NSA studying anything.

If you don't know how the NSF funding process works, grant proposals are peer reviewed in a competitive process by scientific experts for their merit and potential contributions. Obama had nothing to do with this. Presidents have better things to do than review grant proposals.

This only has to do with the government in that NSF provides money, and these researchers happen to be a public (state, not federal) university. You know when we all complain about lack of government support for basic research? That is a lot of what the NSF does.

Very disappointing that an FCC commissioner is trying to create a fake scandal based on what are essentially outright lies. Now THAT deserves your attention.

Read more here.