Feds Spend $1 Million on 'Truthy', the Database That Tracks Misinformation on Twitter

The U.S. federal government has spent almost $1 million in the creation of an online database that has been designed to “detect political smears, astroturfing, misinformation, and other social pollution” on Twitter.

The project, which is called Truthy (in homage to “truthiness”, a term coined by Stephen Colbert), was established in September 2010 and is backed by the National Science Foundation. Truthy tracks how memes spread online by collecting a random sample of tweets and analysing their contents.

Created by researchers at Indiana University, Truthy has received $919,917 in grant funding to date.

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