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Computer Scientists Say Meme Research Doesn't Threaten Free Speech 109

Posted by Soulskill from the not-sure-if-good-thing-or-bad-thing dept.
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.
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Computer Scientists Say Meme Research Doesn't Threaten Free Speech More

Computer Scientists Say Meme Research Doesn't Threaten Free Speech

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  • The first step to control (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cold fjord ( 826450 ) on Wednesday November 05, 2014 @12:18AM (#48315359)

    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?

    • If control is possible. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 05, 2014 @12:40AM (#48315423)

      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: (Score:2)

        by philgp ( 584302 )

        How many milli-LULZ before it goes viral?

        Over 9000.

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

        Interesting hypothesis. Wouldn't it make sense to test it and see if it's right or not?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by 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: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by cold fjord ( 826450 )

        That's certainly what many around here claims when the so called "Military Industrial Complex" or CIA/NSA/FIB/* comes up as a funding source. I guess all they have to do is money launder it through NSF and its all good because *science*!!

    • I for one would like this sort of research to be public, rather than just being known to politicians and marketers.

    • It's hard to control a thing without being able to analyze it.

      It is also hard to produce biological weapons without first analyzing how disease spreads; but that knowledge is also necessary in order to control and cure diseases. All knowledge is a two-edged sword, but ignorance gives you no benefits; it just makes you easier to control by those in power. The problem is not that 'the government' studies it or even that they use it, the real problem is if it is kept secret. One would expect that the government of a democratic society would be less likely to keep secrets

      • So from your post, i get that the intent of studying this is for government and politicians to produce, control, or cure the damage from internet mems?

        And the problem is only that they won't let you know about it?

        I guess the election last night changed a lot of things. Or maybe i just started paying attention to hoe this could be acceptable.

    • 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

    • Measures of control should be subject to democratic discussion. In which case the scientists would be right. Sadly the USA is not a democracy anymore. So I agree that this research will lead to more government control.

    • There is a BBC documentary film maker named Adam Curtis who makes some fascinating and disturbing videos about society and control. He has access to the BBC film archives, and uses historical footage extensively. The assertions made are extensively documented and the interviews of powerful people are extremely interesting. I think that this video, The Engineering of Consent [vimeo.com], is relevant to this discussion. It is one hour, and quite "stream of consciousness", but worth watching. It is the second episode

  • What is a meme? Was that supposed to be memo?
    • Meme [wikipedia.org]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by n6kuy ( 172098 )

        The wikipedia article uses lots of words to explain that a "meme" is just the same thing that used to be known as a "fad."

        • Not really. While many or most fads are memes, not all memes are fads. For example, 'democratic government' is a meme (just to pick a totally random example from the millions out there), and that's still going after 4,000 years.

    • Re:Question (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Wednesday November 05, 2014 @01:18AM (#48315533) Journal
      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/... [wikipedia.org]
      Historically in the US COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] 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.

      • 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.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          It can just be a frame from a viral video, movie or political event that becomes the "meme". Recall the art created from the use of pepper spray in the US.
          Try http://knowyourmeme.com/ [knowyourmeme.com]
          Movies can kept or sent be sent out of an area in realtime with apps like Bambuser, Call Recorder, Fi-Vo Film, GotYa!, Open Watch, Secret Camera Recorder.
          Frames extracted and comments or art work added. The classic "meme" is then ready for use.
          Gov, mil and local law enforcement officials do like to track people with th

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Threni ( 635302 )

      Yes, the research was into memos; how long they should be, which font, what colour paper to print them on.

  • If you're concerned about 1984... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Presumably you should be demanding that your representatives stop the maniacs at the NSA who are working around the clock to create exactly that, instead of wasting their time pestering some IU researchers who want to research memes.

    I will never understand that the same people who say in one sentence that everything government does is horrible and government never gets it right and we need to drown the federal govt in a bathtub will in the very next sentence agree that it should be allowed to surveille abso

    • I will never understand that the same people who say in one sentence that everything government does is horrible and government never gets it right and we need to drown the federal govt in a bathtub will in the very next sentence agree that it should be allowed to surveille absolutely everything you do, torture people it "suspects" of being terrorists (after redefining everything including TPing the neighbor's house as "terrorism") and, through the death penalty, literally be given the power of life and death over you.

      You're talking about True Small Government Conservatives, like cold fjord. Can't you see that they just want you to be Truly Free!? Can't you see that they want you to have Real Freedom, instead of License!?

  • That makes no sence (Score:3)

    by giorgist ( 1208992 ) on Wednesday November 05, 2014 @12:59AM (#48315475)
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Wednesday November 05, 2014 @01:15AM (#48315529) Homepage Journal

    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 [wikipedia.org] 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 [wikipedia.org], 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 [kuow.org] - 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

    • I'm pretty sure that your history is wrong. The Germans were on the trail of building an atomic bomb without help from Szilzard. The problem was that by they time the realized it might be feasible it was too late to develop one before the war would end, so it was not actively pursued.

      • The Germans had made a big calculation error, and thought the critical mass was much larger than it was . As the first nuclear weapons could only be carried by the largest of Allied bombers (such as the B-29 and the Lancaster), an oversized one had no hope of being used as a bomb.

        I've seen speculation that the German scientists deliberately introduced the error, instead of it being a legitimate mistake, FWIW.

        • Do you have any reliable reference for the Calculation Error?

          If it were true then it would add weight to the stupidity of dropping the bomb on Japan, and thus telling the Soviets to build one too.

          Anthony

          • I don't have any handy reference to the error, sorry. However, Germany was conquered months before the bomb was ready, and so Germany's progress was irrelevant to whether to nuke Japan. (Neither of Japan's nuclear programs - one Army and one Navy, of course - were in any shape to use, although Japanese scientists knew what happened to Hiroshima almost immediately.)

            That being said, I think dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki overall saved a lot of civilian lives. The most optimistic estimates

    • Yes.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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 f

    • The conflicts of the early 20th century seem almost tribal in retrospect.

      Yeah, if you reflexively privilege your own era, for no good reason.

      Allah and his followers might just have to teach you an object lesson about this ...

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Very Fascinating (Score:3)

    by TrollstonButterbeans ( 2914995 ) on Wednesday November 05, 2014 @01:40AM (#48315581)
    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. (Score:3)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday November 05, 2014 @01:41AM (#48315585) Homepage

    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: (Score:1)

      by bombman ( 87339 )

      My guess is that they're all researching exactly that already..
      Why would they not?

  • Things that adds to viralness;

    * Play on hate, fear or pride.
    * Supports the underdog.
    * Neglect truth for clarity.
    * Funny or awsome
    * Contains baby,cat or fluffy animal.

  • Look, if the government studies how to kill things more effectively that could be used by a police state too. So should the government not study how to kill things? Well, that bridge was crossed... now everyone has to have the most kill capable government on earth just to keep the other governments from thinking about balancing next year's budget shortfall by killing everyone in your country and taking your stuff.

    But how does this relate to this meme research? Well, they probably will come up with new ways

  • this is pure speculation here, but my guess is that the people (politicians) protesting this research are quite likely to be the ones in charge of classified funding efforts for military, espionage and CIA equivalent research... and deployment of those same tools. if you've ever read Neal Stephenson's book "Cobweb" you'll know exactly what is most likely to be going on.

    so, in essence, those people (politicians) know damn well that the espionage, domestic and political manipulation tools that they funded ar

  • Sure, the study itself is not a threat to free speech, but the goal of the study is to enable government to suppress free speech. That much is obvious to anyone with one eyeball not laser-focused on the big pile of taxpayer cash.

  • If it's on the Internet, then it isn't a secret anymore ...

  • Geezers will remember the race between USSR & USA to develop 'mind control' technology through much of the last century. America got a late start and rushed to catch up to the decades old Soviet research. Similar to the 'space race' but less publicized. [It is said that-] This research ended in 2003. You may find interesting information with a search for the MKUltra program. Traditional media tend not to report such things but here are some links:
    http://www.news.com.au/technol... [news.com.au]
    https://sites.google.com [google.com]

    • Obviously, it didn't end for good in 2003.

      Controlling the mind is the way to confer dictatorship-like powers while still respecting democracy. Until now, extraordinary communication skills are required in order to screw an entire country [economist.com]. Were mind control available, any idiot could do that. This explains why idiots go after mind control.

      Public money is spent to drive research toward empowering the political system rather than some more useful task. Politicians are unable to drive research, of course.

  • This is absurd. I would understand if this had been funded by Department of Defense or DHS money, but this is a small grant by the National Science Foundation to study an interesting sociology problem that many people ask. Saying its some grand conspiracy for mind control is like saying the NSF is funding biology research to better understand how to deploy biological weapons, funding chemistry to build better bombs, physics to build better listening devices, or funding computer vision to build a better sp

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