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In reply to the discussion: Al Gore: Edward Snowden's 'Important Service' [View all]jakeXT
(10,575 posts)US spies search for a sarcasm detector. Really
So the American secret service is looking for a way to detect sarcasm on Twitter. Of course they are.
Keen to develop a way of automating its social media monitoring service, the spy agency has put out a tender to find a company able to develop a program allowing its computers to filter sarcastic threats from serious ones, as well as conducting sentiment analysis.
Ed Donovan, a spokesperson for the Secret Service, apparently claimed, without a trace of irony: The ability to detect sarcasm and false positives is just one of 16 or 18 things we are looking at.
Yeah, right. Not. There is nothing easier to spot with a bit of clever programming and some smart algorithms. Language experts may suggest they pick up on the idea entirely serious and po-faced after all put forward by the mischievous journalist Bernard Levin some years ago, when he suggested there should be a special typeface for these circumstances, named ironic, just so that people such as Americans could detect the presence of irony where no other indications are present.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/us-spies-search-for-a-sarcasm-detector-really-9496841.html