Social Media Monitoring with CEP, pt. 2: Context As Important As Sentiment by Chris Carlson.
From the post:
When I last wrote about social media monitoring, I made a case for using a technology like Complex Event Processing (“CEP”) to detect rapidly growing and geospatially-oriented social media mentions that can provide early warning detection for the public good (Social Media Monitoring for Early Warning of Public Safety Issues, Oct. 27, 2011).
A recent article by Chris Matyszczyk of CNET highlights the often conflicting and confusing nature of monitoring social media. A 26-year old British citizen, Leigh Van Bryan, gearing up for a holiday of partying in Los Angeles, California (USA), tweeted in British slang his intention to have a good time: “Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America.” Since I’m not too far removed the culture of youth, I did take this to mean partying, cutting loose, having a good time (and other not-so-current definitions.)
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This story does not end happily, as Van Bryan and his friend Emily Bunting were arrested and then sent back to Blighty.
This post will not increase American confidence in the TSAbut does illustrate how context can influence the identification of a subject (or “person of interest”) or to exclude the same.
Context is captured in topic maps using associations. In this particular case, a view of the information on the young man in question would reveal a lack of associations with any known terror suspects, people on the no-fly list, suspicious travel patterns, etc.
Not to imply that having good information leads to good decisions, technology can’t correct that particular disconnect.
[…] TSA arrests, deports two Brit tourists for tweeting ironic youthful party argot Another Word for It (hat tip Lambert) […]
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