Sunday, February 15, 2009



Blogs now monitored for "tone"?

We read:
"You won't believe this one. But, then again, you might. A blogsite called Newstin (is that short for tin news?) is now rating blog posts based on wording *tone,* not truth. This is right out of the novel Fahrenheit 451 or George Orwell's novel 1984. Apparently, any content that is negatively *toned* in content, regardless of whether the content is liberal or conservative, is labeled *negatively toned.* The web masters at Newstin call their monitoring program *Sentiment Analysis*

Excerpted from Newstin:
"Sentiment Analysis is a tool developed by Newstin to indicate the overall tone of an article i.e., whether it has a positive, negative or neutral feel to it. For example, an article about an oil spillage at sea would most likely contain negative wording due to the effects of the incident. Our Sentiment-o-Meter provides readers with an indication of the tone of an article without reading it. Red represents negative tone, green positive and grey is for neutral tone: The higher the scale of the colour (from bottom to top), the greater the degree of the given sentiment.

Source

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how they'd "TONE" this comment:

"The blogsite called Newstin is (SSS) a Slimey Shithole of Scumbags!"

Anonymous said...

If being in favor of something is 'positive' and opposing it is 'negative' then I positively oppose it.

Anonymous said...

What an absolute waste of time. If a statement is neutral, it is likely it doesn't convey much meaning!

Anonymous said...

of course anything not jubilant about The One would be deeply negative, as would anything at all positive about Republicans...

Anonymous said...

"What an absolute waste of time. If a statement is neutral, it is likely it doesn't convey much meaning!"

Not necessarilly true.
The truth is by definition neutral, however much some parties and groups of people in general might dislike it...

And that's the crux. It's impossible to measure "negative sentiment" unless you set a baseline, and the baseline will of necessity be a highly subjective one.

Anonymous said...

Well, you know this idea takes off, there will be the inevitable 'googlizing' of the rankings.

Anonymous said...

This is about a bunch of leftists who will decided what your tone is. It's merely the next phase of political correctness. Yes, they do have voice regognition" software they claim can tell your mood, but it's highly unreliable. As with most of those on the left, if you say something they disagree with, you're labeled as "aggressive or out-of-control". If it's clear that you're a fellow leftist, then you're discribed as enlightened, and therefor acceptable.

Anonymous said...

Go to the original web site. It's selling a commercial service to corporations to monitor their employees' blogs to make sure the tone of what the company bloggers writes is not offensive, rude, inadvertently racy or dorky.

This ain't Ashcroft snooping into your own personal blog with dirty words and pictures of people making slant-eyes in party photos.

Anonymous said...

Somehow, it would not surprise me if Newstin turned out to have a tin ear for tone.

Glen Echelbarger said...

Ths is the same approach that Al Franken used in his book "Lies and the Lying Liars that Tell Them." He used "Team Franklin" to watch the news and by the tone he was able to assess that major networks were unbiased if not slightly leaning to the right. He then gave them a free pass and did an in depth ananlysis of Fox. The issue of tone is who is doing the judgement. Most everyone will take their point of view and say it is the center and work accordingly.

The Times Observer said...

Well, isn't that nice of them? They do your thinking for you.

Anonymous said...

Well, isn't that nice of them? They do your thinking for you.

My thoughts, exactly! Have we now become so lazy and out of touch with ourselves that we need to be told what emotions should be evoked by the written word?

Anonymous said...

"My thoughts, exactly! Have we now become so lazy and out of touch with ourselves that we need to be told what emotions should be evoked by the written word?"

Um,... yes! Why do you think political correctness has become the unwritten law-of-the-land? It seems that everyone in this country (and most of the world) knows how weak, dumb, and compliant the American people have become. Everyone that is, except the people!

Anonymous said...

A large load of hydrocarbon base stock was liberated from it's captors today and allowed to wash free over the local beaches. The shiny, black gelatinous membrane covered the top of the water from Normandy to Brittany, fulfilling the circle of life for thousands of sea birds as they bathed in the gooey black goodness. Officials predict no end to the ecological effects of this event!

How's THAT for a positive "Oil Spill" story?