The government wants to know if you're being sarcastic.
Posting an announcement on Monday, the Secret Service has requested proposals for software that would detect sarcasm and otherwise serve to filter through the countless updates on social media, The Washington Post reported.
The Secret Service order asks for a laundry list of specific tools that would help the agency follow social media trends and monitor Twitter. Some of the tools that the Secret Service hopes to gain would let the agency pinpoint influential people in the social media landscape, examine data in real time and use heat maps.
Some experts are concerned that the Secret Service's desire to parse status updates will stifle free speech in social media as the government has more tools to sweep Twitter and other sites for red flags.
"It does appear that it's going to be a pretty broad monitoring program. It will likely sweep in some First Amendment protected expression," said Ginger McCall, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, as quoted by the Post. "It is troubling, because it really stifles people's ability to freely express themselves, and it has a tendency to quell dissent, to make people think twice before they express themselves online."
Spotting a sarcastic tone is one small facet of the agency's push for more social media analytics tools, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan told the Post.
"Our objective is to automate our social-media monitoring process," Donovan said. "Twitter is what we analyze. This is real-time stream analysis. The ability to detect sarcasm and false positives is just one of 16 or 18 things we are looking at."
Developers can submit their proposals for the various requested tools until June 9.
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