Part 5: 'TRUTHY' & Indiana University's Misinformation Problem
'Truthy' | 'CoVaxxy' | NSF-funded 'Midwest Big Data Hub' | the Observatory on Social Media ('OSoMe') | Minerva Research Institute (DoD) | Big Te[N] ... or Big Te[CH]
BIG Te[N] | BIG Te[CH]
When I learned that an Indiana University “computer researcher” was in many ways at the center of, or at least materially involved in, spreading the RussiaGate/SpyGate/Russian Collusion Hoax, dots began to connect for me/my research in ways that extended far beyond the already super-f**king extensive/complex/sophisticated/6-year+ long Russian collusion & SpyGate sagas of which John Durham is actively investigating.
The Indiana University researcher/Professor in question goes by the name “L. Jean Camp”. You can check out Part 2 of this Series here where I explored L. Jean’s Camp’s involvement in the origins of the Russian Alfa Bank-Trump Tower Server, and her interviews with several prominent news organizations in the days before the 2016 Election as the “spokesperson” for this "bipartisan group of researchers” that was claiming to have found evidence in public & nonpublic DNS logs indicating possible backchannel communications between Trump & Russia via a secret server communicating between Trump Tower & Russian bank “Alfa Bank”. [Whew that’s a mouth-full & I know my mom would not appreciate the run-on sentence…]
We know *factually* that this link did not exist. Trump didn’t even control or own the server in question. And the server in question wasn’t even located in Trump tower… it was in Pennsylvania. The FBI confirmed all of this too. Additionally, independent Security Experts were hired by the Russian bank to investigate the servers, found no such communications, and a step further found that the data shared by L. Jean Camp to her website had been formatted differently than the data directly off the Alfa Bank servers…
(Epoch Times) “John Durham: Trump White House and Residences Spied On”
Curious about which “US-based university” [GEORGIA TECH] was “receiving and analyzing large amounts of internet data in connection with a pending federal government [DARPA] cybersecurity research contract,” I decided to look around on my own to see if there were any contracts Indiana University had with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — aka the Govt. Agency with the research contracts in question. And boy to my surprise…
Indiana University & DARPA have a very extensive history…
‘TRUTHY’:
“Enabling the Study of Online Social Networks”
a system that collects TWITTER data to analyze discourse in near real time1
--> Indiana University / Center for Complex Networks & Systems Research
--> DARPA
--> National Science Foundation (NSF)
"TRUTHY monitors a real-time feed of 140-character messages known as tweets & clusters them into groups of related messaged called ‘memes.’
These are common hashtags, a username, hyperlink, or phrase.
“Memes are extracted from tweets that match lists of handpicked keywords (‘themes’) — users can browse memes according to these themes”
The "MEME'S INFORMATION DIFFUSION NETWORK"
"… user specific statistics such as predicted ‘predicted political partisanship…’
"Another important new contribution of the TRUTHY system is in enabling active improvement of our algorithms by facilitating the tagging of suspicious content ... We collect these posts FOR FUTURE STUDIES analyzing the reliability of crowdsourced data"
"open tools like ours will advance efforts to leverage large data streams from the Internet as a primary source in the social sciences."
--> sounds super creepy & predatory
“Same DARPA grant also funded social media studies of Occupy Wall Street”2
Now if I’m being honest, I started to get the ‘heebie jeebies’ right around this point & I still do as I look back over everything I am trying to squeeze into this article… There’s just this incredibly real vibe of “1984” by George Orwell permeating over all of this MASSIVE DATA MINING/Harvesting & Analyzing operation — algorithms determining what is “truth” and what it identifies as “false / misleading / misinformation” etc…
And it only gets more fucked up (sorry not sorry for language let’s be adults) as we begin to incorporate “Covid-19” & the topics of “vaccines” & “misinformation” into the mix. As well as all kinds of other broad generalizations not supported by facts or sound arguments but just broad declarations by fiat of “this is truth, this other stuff is misinformation” … because as you’ll see: the only “truth” these people/orgs/algorithms/bots even remotely consider is: vaccines are essential & anything to the contrary is misleading & misinformation.
It’s a really sick glimpse into what is happening behind the scenes with social media.
As well as a sick glimpse into what’s happening at universities, schools across the USA
Alright… before we go any further, here are the highlights of topics I came across in my research that stood out to me & which will be the basis for the information shared over the next 2 Posts/Articles. I will break these topics up into separate posts (yellow paper & blue paper more or less) & apologize in advance for any ‘bouncing around’ but will do my best to keep focused/on topic. Let’s dive in.
“OSoMe” — the Observatory on Social Media (Indiana University)
(pronounced “awe-some” per https://osome.iu.edu)
… make me throw up cheesy
“Perfect” timing for our post today… The creepy Observatory on Social Media has a new “research” paper out “linking covid19 infodemic & epidemic”
ENTER STAGE … “CoVaxxy”
Keep in mind… this is a state funded university… who should be encouraging independent, free thought, and advocating dialogue from all sides. Nope… not here.
These are the “Gatekeepers” right here, folks…
The distinction b/w “LOW CREDIBILITY” & “MAINSTREAM SOURCE”…
‘CNetS’ — Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research
‘CNetS faculty lead two prestigious DoD Minerva projects on the science of science’
‘MINERVA’ … Like OWLS???
And what do you know… the Minerva (OWL) Research Initiative is interested in…
‘MISINFORMATION’ !!!
‘Minerva-funded Research Reveals How Misinformation can be Re-invigorated in Discourse Through the Novelty of a Major Event’
http://minerva.defense.gov/Minerva-News/News_Display/Article/2998013/minerva-funded-research-reveals-how-misinformation-can-be-re-invigorated-in-dis/
(August 15, 2019) “New $6 million center will Investigate Media and Technology in Society”
Hey! More “Misinformation” fighters! (lol)
$6 MILLION DOLLARS … Pre-Covid Inflation too haha … what the actual fuck it’s like an endless piggy bank for ENDLESS POINTLESS STUDIES
(More on the “Knight Foundation” & Indiana University below)
(August 31, 2019) “DREAM Challenge Paper Published in Nature Methods“
(April 3, 2020) “IUNI affiliate creates interactive COVID-19 visualizations“3
Yong-Yeol Ahn
(May 15, 2020) “IU-based science gateway enables key COVID-19 research using big data”
(May 27, 2020) “IUNI partner project creates fellowship for coronavirus research”6
VAL PENTCHEV … What happened?!?!7
Remembering Val Pentchev (1973–2021), IUNI’s IT Director – Connecting the Dots
“IUNI’s founding Director of IT”
Only 48 years old… Makes me wonder what happened. Terrible to see. Prayers for their family.
In Memorium: Val Pentchev8
MIDWEST BIG DATA HUB9
ACCELERATING THE BIG DATA INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM10:
(Nov. 5, 2015) — “IU TO PLAY KEY ROLE IN NSF-FUNDED MIDWEST BIG DATA HUB REGIONAL PROJECT”11
SEEDCorn …??? Supercomputing…???
“CrowdTangle” & the “KNIGHT FOUNDATION” (IU)12
“Yan Named OSoMe Knight Fellow13”
The ‘KNIGHTS’ OF ‘MISINFORMATION’…
Some “Yan” Highlights…
Team-authored study examines social morality, political ideology adoption
21 Media School students, faculty to present at ICA conference
I don’t have any idea what is going on at this point; who these people are; how this benefits Indiana University; who/what all this misinformation research money is going towards; or why the misinformation research money seems to be fucking endless…
From the IU site detailing the the “71st annual International Communication Association (ICA) conference:14
“‘Engaging the Essential Work of Care: Communication, Connectedness, and Social Justice,’”
IU … “KNIGHT” ?!
Oh sorry, sorry… Different “Knight” … carry on.
The KNIGHT FOUNDATION15:
We are social investors who support a more effective democracy by funding free expression and journalism, arts and culture in community, research in areas of media and democracy, and in the success of American cities and towns where the Knight brothers once published newspapers.
Focus ( / Favorite Terms):
“threats to our democracy” … “misinformation” … “information that serves diverse communities”
Origins: Knight Newspapers / Knight Ridder
“Nine universities and nonprofits awarded more than $1.2 million from Knight Foundation to combat disinformation in communities of color”16
… pretty sure “disinformation” impacts all races / genders / backgrounds… Hmm.
‘Truthy’ Twitter database funded by Pentagon’s DARPA - 1776 Channel
Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research Indiana University at DuckDuckGo
CNetS faculty lead two prestigious DoD Minerva projects on the science of science | CNetS
CNetS | Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research | Page 2
Evidence of a coordinated network amplifying inauthentic narratives in the 2020 US election | CNetS
UPDATE: BotSlayer tool to expose disinformation networks | CNetS
IUNI partner project creates fellowship for coronavirus research – Connecting the Dots
Big Data and Virus Studies: Coronavirus: Our Strengths: Research Impact: Indiana University
IUNI affiliate creates interactive COVID-19 visualizations – Connecting the Dots
The effectiveness of backward contact tracing in networks | Nature Physics
Valentin T. Pentchev Obituary (1973 - 2021) | Greenwood, Indiana
Remembering Val Pentchev (1973–2021), IUNI’s IT Director – Connecting the Dots
*** KNIGHT FELLOWS / KNIGHT MEDIA FORUM ***
Partner Event: Knight Media Forum — Democracy Funders Network
6 key takeaways from Knight Media Forum 2021 – Knight Foundation
Knight Media Forum (KMF), | The Journalism Events Calendar | Fourth Estate®
Recall… our “MAP”:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.4565.pdf
https://1776channel.com/2014/08/27/tech/surveillance/truthy-twitter-database-funded-by-pentagons-darpa/
https://blogs.iu.edu/connecting/2020/04/03/iuni-affiliate-creates-interactive-covid-19-visualizations/
https://cnets.indiana.edu/people/yong-yeol-ahn/
http://yongyeol.com/
https://blogs.iu.edu/connecting/2020/05/27/iuni-partner-project-develops-fellowship-for-coronavirus-research/
https://www.echovita.com/us/obituaries/in/greenwood/valentin-t-pentchev-13930405
https://midwestbigdatahub.org/in-memoriam-val-pentchev/
http://midwestbigdatahub.org/
https://midwestbigdatahub.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/MBDH-hello.pdf
https://itnews.iu.edu/articles/2015/iu-to-play-key-role-in-nsf-funded-midwest-big-data-hub-regional-project.php
https://iuni.iu.edu/resources/datasets/osome/crowdtangle-policy
https://mediaschool.indiana.edu/news-events/news/item.html?n=yan-named-osome-knight-fellow
https://mediaschool.indiana.edu/news-events/news/item.html?n=17-media-school-students-faculty-to-present-at-ica-conference
https://knightfoundation.org/about/
https://knightfoundation.org/press/releases/nine-universities-and-nonprofits-awarded-more-than-1-2-million-from-knight-foundation-to-combat-disinformation-on-communities-of-color/