House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith wants to know how and why a federal agency gave nearly a million tax dollars to a project studying targeting of political speech on Twitter.
The Texas Republican demanded Monday that National Science Foundation officials explain a $919,717 grant they made to the Truthy Project headed by a University of Indiana professor that sought to track “hate speech” and “false information” on the popular social media platform.
“The committee and taxpayers deserve to know how NSF decided to award a large grant for a project that proposed to develop standards for online political speech and to apply those standards through development of a website that targeted conservative political comments,” Smith said in a letter to NSF Director France Cordova.
“While some have argued that Truthy could be used to better understand things like disaster communication or to assist law enforcement, instead it appears Truthy focused on examples of ‘false and misleading ideas, hate speech, and subversive propaganda’ communicated by conservative groups,” he said.
The NSF made the grant in 2011. The project was managed by Prof. Filippo Menczer, who teaches informatics and computer science.
During the study, researchers focused on such Twitter hashtags as “TCOT,” which stands for “top conservatives on Twitter.” Menczer claimed in a book about the project that several accounts associated with conservative hashtags were suspended as a result of the Truthy Project.
“Whether by amazing coincidence or on purpose, it appears that several social media accounts highlighted by Truthy were subsequently terminated by the owners of the social media platforms, effectively muzzling the political free speech of the targeted individuals and groups,” Smith said.
“In presenting and publishing the findings of their work, the Truthy research team proudly described how the web service targeted conservative social media messages. Their presentations featured examples of what they found to be online political speech ‘abuses’ by supporters of these groups,” he said.
Smith noted that at least one prominent federal official has called recently for the federal government to regulate and limit online political speech.
He was referring to a recent proposal by FEC Vice Chairman Ann Ravel for that panel to reconsider its standing policy of exempting online political advertising from regulations that limit political advertising in print and broadcast media.
Smith wants copies of all documents related to NSF’s grant award, including applications, supporting materials, emails and other correspondence between the agency and applicants, and guidance provided by NSF and outside experts in evaluating the grant application and the project itself.
Go here for the text of the Smith letter.
Mark Tapscott is executive editor of the Washington Examiner.
