Secret Service Wants a Sarcasm Detector

It is totally not disconcerting that the people protecting the president cannot determine a basic level of sarcasm. The Secret Service is actively looking to buy software that can monitor social media in sophisticated ways, including detecting sarcasm in tweets. The agency has posted a software request, seeking a program with the “ability to detect sarcasm and false positives” to better help the organization make emergency decisions regarding the legitimacy of threats. However, it also seems like the Secret Service is also interested in tracking its own popularity. The software request also mandates that the programming should have the “ability to quantify the agency’s social-media outreach/footprint.”