In an unprecedented move, the U.S. government is now secretly building a virtual office for monitoring and spying on Americans.
In what some have called a “tweet machine,” the government is building an artificial intelligence platform, known as the TwitterBot, that will allow it to monitor Twitter users and send messages to them that are aimed at influencing their political views, the New York Times reported on Friday.
The TwitterBot will be housed in a $5 million “data center” in Maryland, the Times said, adding that it is being used to help the Trump administration spy on Twitter users for political purposes.
The Times added that the bot is being operated by the U:S.
Secret Service.
The new bot, which the Times described as “a virtual office,” will be used to monitor and spy on American citizens, according to the report.
The bot, according the Times, will also be used by the Trump White House to track and monitor political activity on the social network.
It is not yet clear how the Trump team will use the new bot or whether it will be connected to the Trump Tower in New York.
Twitter is currently facing legal and ethical challenges over the use of its services, including the revelation that Trump had tweeted at least eight times from his New York tower, according a report by Politico.
In the past, Twitter has defended its use of data mining to help it monitor political messages, which was done to help combat online harassment of Democrats.
However, the company has also been under scrutiny over the way it uses the technology to track users and to monitor users’ political beliefs.
The Trump administration has also faced legal challenges from civil rights advocates over the same tactic.