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Government Sponsors Truthy Study of Twitter

By Babette Boliek

The debate over the National Science Foundation study of Twitter is getting off track. The sole issue at stake is whether it is appropriate for the government to fund Truthy — no matter how worthwhile it may be.

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Essays

  • 3-D Printing: Challenges and Opportunities

    3-D Printing: Challenges and Opportunities

    With physical copying now approaching digital copying in terms of ease, cost, and convenience, how will the advent of ...

    Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series on 3-D printing. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know by now that 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), is ...

  • Why Privilege Nonprofits?

    Why Privilege Nonprofits?

    People on the right view nonprofits as a civil-society bulwark against big government. People on the left think that ...

    In the United States, not-for-profit organizations enjoy a special status. Legally, they may apply for tax exemptions, and they tend to enjoy freedom from antitrust scrutiny. In addition, many people ...

  • Chinese Check: Forging New Identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan

    Chinese Check: Forging New Identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan

    In both Hong Kong and Taiwan, residents are identifying less and less as Chinese, a trend that troubles Beijing.

    At the time of Hong Kong’s election for its next chief executive in 2017, first-time voters, having been born two years after the 1997 handover, will have known nothing but Chinese rule. When ...

  • The Origins and Traditions of Columbus Day

    The Origins and Traditions of Columbus Day

    Columbus Day is a most unusual American holiday and has become a day 'to celebrate not only an intrepid searcher but ...

    The American Calendar project is a series of nine e-anthologies — one for each national holiday — whose stories, speeches, songs, poems, letters, and essays help us think about the meaning ...

  • The Redevelopment Racket

    The Redevelopment Racket

    The growing trend of public redevelopment has increased cronyism, land confiscation, and waste.

    The justifications that governments give for subsidizing private developments are often dubious, but this was particularly so for a recent New Jersey deal. This summer, the state granted $82 million ...

  • Do the Locomotive

    Do the Locomotive

    Fifty years after the first rapid train began its scheduled service, this comfortable, safe, and efficient mode of ...

    Fifty years after the first high-speed train began its scheduled service in Japan, it is remarkable how this superior alternative has not caught on in North America. Among modern affluent nations, only ...

  • Can Social Security Privatization Guarantee You More Benefits at a Lower Cost?

    Can Social Security Privatization Guarantee You More Benefits at a Lower Cost?

    No, but the CBPP’s stance on budget accounting says it can.

    There’s a debate going on regarding how government budgets should account for risk. In an article in National Affairs, Jason Richwine and Jason Delisle argue that the federal government should ...

  • How Green Is Europe?

    How Green Is Europe?

    A superficial look might indicate great achievements. Yet a closer view reveals how far European renewables have to go, ...

    “Germany produces half of energy with solar.” That was the recent headline on a German website of news in English, and it would have duly impressed anybody whose understanding of energy ...

  • The Sharing Economy Under Pressure

    The Sharing Economy Under Pressure

    Uber, Lyft and Airbnb’s regulatory roadblocks continue.

    Twenty years ago, government officials were trying to figure out how to get the solo driver commuting in his gas-guzzling car to share a ride, thereby saving some space on the road and helping the ...

  • Will Venture Capitalists Drive the Next Spectacular Breakthrough?

    Will Venture Capitalists Drive the Next Spectacular Breakthrough?

    Peter Thiel’s Zero to One is a provocative and stimulating book, however, the Silicon Valley institutional structure ...

    In Zero to One, Peter Thiel claims that what is best for the economy and for individual entrepreneurs is for entrepreneurs to create unique businesses based on contrarian ideas. Thiel cofounded ...

Datapoints

Leave Me Alone

Nearly six in ten registered voters want government to leave them alone.

Leave Me Alone

TECH POLICY DAILY

  • Tech Policy Daily: The voice of the American Enterprise Institute's Center for Internet, Communications, and Technology Policy.

Most Viewed Articles

3-D Printing: Challenges and Opportunities By Michael M. Rosen 10/19/2014
With physical copying now approaching digital copying in terms of ease, cost, and convenience, how ...
Why Privilege Nonprofits? By Arnold Kling 10/17/2014
People on the right view nonprofits as a civil-society bulwark against big government. People on ...
Chinese Check: Forging New Identities in Hong Kong and Taiwan By Michael Mazza 10/14/2014
In both Hong Kong and Taiwan, residents are identifying less and less as Chinese, a trend that ...
The Origins and Traditions of Columbus Day By Amy Kass and Leon Kass 10/10/2014
Columbus Day is a most unusual American holiday and has become a day 'to celebrate not only an ...
How Green Is Europe? By Vaclav Smil 09/30/2014
A superficial look might indicate great achievements. Yet a closer view reveals how far European ...
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