America’s central bank has taken a keen interest in public opinion — specifically, in tracking what ordinary citizens say about it across the internet. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) published a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) seeking vendors capable of building a “Sentiment Analysis And Social Media Monitoring Solution.” The goal was straightforward: harvest and analyze online discourse about the Fed from every major platform.
What the Fed’s Social Media Monitoring RFP Revealed
The FRBNY’s procurement document laid out an ambitious surveillance framework. According to the RFP, the agency sought to “establish a fair and equitable partnership with a market leader” that would collect data from social media channels and news outlets, then deliver actionable intelligence back to the central bank.
The scope was massive. The system needed to handle “billions of conversations” flowing through Facebook, Twitter, blogs, forums, and YouTube. More importantly, it required the ability to perform sentiment analysis — classifying each piece of commentary as positive, negative, or neutral toward the Federal Reserve and its policies.
Targeting Influential Voices and Online Critics
Perhaps the most striking element in the document was the directive to “identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers.” The RFP did not elaborate on what would happen after these individuals were identified, leaving open questions about the Fed’s ultimate intentions.
The system also required automated alert triggers — notifications dispatched whenever predefined criteria were met. This mechanism closely resembles keyword-based intelligence gathering tools employed by national security agencies worldwide.
Growing Public Skepticism Drove the Initiative
The timing of this initiative was no coincidence. Criticism of the Federal Reserve had been intensifying for years, driven overwhelmingly by independent media voices operating outside traditional broadcast and print outlets. The central bank apparently concluded that it needed to understand who was shaping these conversations and what they were saying.
Survey data from the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press reflected the shift underway. By that period, roughly 43 percent of Americans reported getting their national and international news from the internet — a dramatic leap from just 6 percent in 1999. The public was migrating away from legacy media at a remarkable pace.
Media Consolidation and the Rise of Independent Journalism
This migration was partly a response to extreme consolidation in the traditional media landscape. Six major corporations had come to dominate virtually all mainstream news and entertainment — controlling television networks, cable channels, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, and many popular websites. The average American consumed approximately 153 hours of television monthly, yet the diversity of sources behind that content had been steadily shrinking.
Independent journalists, bloggers, and alternative media outlets filled the gap. They covered stories that mainstream sources overlooked, challenged institutional narratives, and gave voice to perspectives that corporate editorial boards often ignored.
A Broader Pattern of Online Speech Monitoring
The Fed’s monitoring initiative was not an isolated case. Around the same period, a political website called “Attack Watch” launched specifically to collect reports about negative commentary directed at political figures. The Department of Health and Human Services proposed rules requiring insurance companies to submit detailed customer health data to federal agencies.
Several independent media sites experienced disruptions during this era. Some prominent alternative outlets were temporarily removed from major platforms, and numerous YouTube accounts were shuttered over their political content. The pattern suggested a growing institutional discomfort with the democratization of information.
Privacy Erosion in the Digital Public Square
Nothing posted on the internet is truly anonymous. Every comment, blog post, and social media update is captured, indexed, and stored by a vast ecosystem of data brokers, government agencies, and corporate surveillance tools. Data mining had already become a billion-dollar industry, and its reach was only expanding.
For citizens expressing critical views about powerful institutions like the Federal Reserve, this reality carried significant implications. The combination of sentiment analysis, influencer identification, and automated alerting created an infrastructure capable of cataloging dissent at scale.
The fundamental tension remained unresolved: in a society built on free expression, how should the public respond when its most powerful financial institution dedicates resources to monitoring and categorizing the speech of its critics?
Originally published November 3, 2012. Content based on reporting from The Economic Collapse Blog and Zero Hedge.
