Social Media Surveillance Expands as IBM Taps Twitter
By Joe Wright
Global Research
October 31, 2014
Public outrage about the global spy network continues to be ignored as corporations and governments announce open partnerships in harvesting all of our data. Social media is one particular playground for data brokers who feast upon the information we “willingly” provide.
I reported recently about Twitter’s ChatterGrabber program that is “used to monitor tickborne diseases, such as Lyme disease, public sentiment involving vaccines, and gun violence and terrorism, serving as an early warning system for public health officials through suspicious tweets or conversations.” That story was followed shortly after by the announcement that Twitter would open up its entire database to MIT beginning with its very first Tweet in 2006. We know that Facebook has used their algorithms to go beyond surveillance and actually manipulate the emotions of usersas a type of psychology experiment. The “Truthy” study, funded by the National Science Foundation, directly targets political speech: One focus is the spread of “political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution.” Even a Republican member of the FCC said that it was a program right out of a George Orwell novel.
No matter – now tech behemoth IBM has its sights set on Twitter.
The Rest…HERE
