Secret Service Has New Software that Detects Sarcasm on the Internet

Nextgov came across a fascinating new software the Secret Service will be deploying: a sarcasm detector. The software can actually detect much more than that: it is meant to investigate a number of emotions, by examining social media. The Secret Service is software that will watch social media users in real time, collecting everything from "emotions of Internet users to old Twitter messages."

Secret Service officials have said the software will "synthesize large sets of social media data" and "identify statistical pattern analysis." The sarcasm watcher will help detect "false positives," presumably separating real threats from bad jokes. It also has the ability to send notifications to users, but considering it's the Secret Service, we wouldn't expect (or want) to see a DM from them anytime soon.

Employees in the Secret Service's Office of Government and Public Affairs will be in charge of using the system.

http://www.thewire.com/technology/2014/06/secret-service-has-new-software-that-detects-sarcasm-on-the-internet/372071/#disqus_thread