US Secret Service Looking For Sarcasm Detector For Social Media Networks

The U.S. government is somewhat like that older family member you have that understands the importance of social media but is rather baffled at how to actually use it effectively. Particularly, the Secret Service is trying to find a tool that analyzes social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and it includes a rather long list of sought-after capabilities.

The most amusing in the long list is “Ability to detect sarcasm and false positives”. (Hey look, Secret Service, if you figure that one out please let everyone know.) The full list is as follows:

Real-time stream analysis;
Customizable, keyword search features;
Sentiment analysis;
Trend analysis;
Audience segmentation;
Geographic segmentation;
Qualitative, data visualization representations (heat maps, charts, graphs, etc.);
Multiple user access;
Functionality to have read-only users;
Access to historical twitter data;
Influencer identification;
Standard web browser access with login credentials;
User level permissions;
Compatibility with Internet Explorer 8;
Section 508 compliant;

Ability to detect sarcasm and false positives;
Functionality to send notifications to users;
Functionality to analyze data over a given period of time;
Ability to quantify the agency's social media outreach/footprint;
Vendor-provided training and technical/customer support;
Ability to create custom reports without involving IT specialists; and
Ability to search online content in multiple languages.

The agency wants to acquire this service from someone with a BPA (Blanket Purchasing Agreement) for 5 years, and it’s accepting applications until June 9th at 5MP EST.