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Calming the flames

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Len of the Chilterns

Len of the Chilterns Report 10 Jun 2009 23:38


The internet allows anyone with the appropriate hardware to freely express themselves to the world at large using a website or blog. But we are not sharing our thoughts with only other humans: web pages are read by software agents all the time, including search engine spiders and spambots.

Now a new kind of agent is starting to roam the web that can understand the emotional content of what we write – and they could soon arrive on your desktop too. These "sentiment analysis" tools are a branch of a wider area of computer science that is trying to teach computers to understand the feelings expressed in text just as well as humans do, and the commercial applications of such technology are already starting to be realised.

The early adopters of these tools are the owners of big brand names in a world where company reputations are affected by customer blogs as much as advertising campaigns. A small but growing group of firms is developing tools that can trawl blogs and online comments, gauging the emotional responses brought about by the company or its products.

The abusive "flame wars" that plague online discussions are encouraged by the way human psychology plays out over the web. Moderating such discussions can be a time-consuming job, needing much judgment to spot when a heated exchange crosses over into abuse. (New Scienist)