Computers may soon be able to police online chat rooms
and social networking sites for signs of bullying, flaming and
negative comments.
Work by a consortium of European
universities and research organisations aims to develop
software capable of taking the emotional temperature of online
postings in
Myspace and other internet communities.
The same technology could be used for improving the way computer
systems respond to human queries, allowing them to respond
differently according to whether users are frustrated or happy.
Taking online emotional
temperatures
Professor Mike Thelwall, professor of information science at the
university of Wolverhampton, is spearheading the UK's contribution
to the project.
The university has developed software capable of taking the
emotional temperature of postings on social networking sites. The
group is using sample data from Myspace, but the principles could
be applied to any site.
"The challenging thing has been tailoring something that ought
to work in theory for the way it works in Myspace." he says. "For
example, in normal text you could look for the word "happy", but in
Myspace it might be happy with seven a's. We have to recognise that
happy with seven a's means happy and that it is more positive than
happy with one a."
After three months' development work, the software is able to
assess the emotional content of postings with an accuracy of 60% -
as good as a human reader.
| Social networking: positive,
neutral and negative ways of expressing emotions | | |
|---|
| Positive | Neutral | Negative |
Omy i looove the song i love maximo park HELLLLLLOOOOOOOOO!! xxxxx look at ur bad son lol =] imma get at u l8r k? luv ya | whats up? hows your holiday going?
Taz told me yo man wutup | nothin... just bored...
why am i not your top friend asswipe!? U cAn HaTe AlL u WaNT iT AiNt ME Sorry if i made u mad m8 |
"We were surprised by the sheer volume of positive emotion in
Myspace and how little negative emotion there was. Especially among
male users, insulting your friends is something you do, but that
does not seem to go on in Myspace," Thelwall says.
Improving the
future of social networking
The four-year project aims to analyse and understand the
emotional dynamics of people interacting online. The work could
help to improve the design of social networking sites in the
future.
"We have simulation experts that will simulate how emotions flow
around the system. If one person is very positive, how will that
flow around the system? If one person is very negative, what impact
will that have? It might be that some negative comments are
necessary to keep a system alive, as negative comments can generate
debate," he says.
Ultimately, the work may lead to software that can take the
emotional temperature of comments on social networking sites in
real time. One problem is that a comment made as a joke online
could be taken the wrong way by others. Offenders could either be
sent an automatic warning or be referred to a moderator, says
Thelwall.
"Expressing a negative emotion in a chat room can have serious
consequences because so many young people are online," he says.
"Hopefully the software will detect if someone is being bullied or
flamed."
Part of the work will be to assess the impact that emotional
statements have on individuals using online services. For example,
researchers plan to use electrodes to measure volunteers' responses
to positive and negative comments in chat rooms.
"We are going to try to extend our methods to work with lots of
other types of internet discussions," he says.
Full list of
collaborators: