The U.K. Government is set to spend £600,000 ($755,000) on social media surveillance to identify “harmful disinformation and misinformation narratives”. Reclaim the Nethas the story.
This is revealed in a notice posted on the Government’s Contracts Finder site that contains information about contracts whose value exceeds the equivalent of $15,000. It shows the authorities are looking for a “misinformation and disinformation monitoring and analysis service”.
This current call for tender is the work of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and was published on April 23rd, closing a month later. …
The announcement states that the place of performance of the contract will be the U.K., while the duration will be nine months, with the possibility of renewal.
The DCMS’s future partner in monitoring and analysing social media content will have to focus on U.K. audiences, according to the tendering terms, adding that this “clear” focus should be present where that distinction is possible to make.
The goal is described in fairly vague terms as identifying “harmful disinformation and misinformation narratives, Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour (CIB) or systematic manipulation of the information environment”.
What the DCMS intends to do with the reports from its future surveillance contractor is anybody’s guess at this point.
Given its abysmal performance during the pandemic, quite why the Government thinks it is in any position to authoritatively distinguish fact from fiction is unclear. The point that the risk of some people getting stuff wrong is worth taking to safeguard freedom of expression and inquiry – and thus the quest for truth – seems completely lost on them.
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Many people will say that we don’t live in North Korea Russia or China and we should be grateful that we live in a free country where we have free speech. ——–Complacency is a dangerous thing.
To the 12 thumbs down people. ———Do you appreciate having free speech or not? Because if you take freedom for granted, like many seem to be doing, then it will be gone before you know it.
Liberal Progressives hate you choosing because you might not choose them and that is why they want to control and ban everything that isn’t their particular world view.
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Many people will say that we don’t live in North Korea Russia or China and we should be grateful that we live in a free country where we have free speech. ——–Complacency is a dangerous thing.
To the 12 thumbs down people. ———Do you appreciate having free speech or not? Because if you take freedom for granted, like many seem to be doing, then it will be gone before you know it.
It’s Gorsuch not Gorush
Bit worrying that Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett presumably voted to lift the injunction, hope they rule the right way when the case is heard
However the case goes in the US Supreme Court, internet censorship will still be imposed by the EU.
Liberal Progressives hate you choosing because you might not choose them and that is why they want to control and ban everything that isn’t their particular world view.