Bully and the Computer that Knows Your Feelings

By James Curcio

The movie Bully is hitting theaters on Friday, and it is making quite a stir.



The issue of bullying in schools has taken a surprisingly long time to reach a mainstream tipping point, considering its link to many of the school shootings that have destroyed countless people's lives, not to mention its presence in many of psychological makeups as adults. Some people are challenging its narrative as being too simplistic, overlooking all of the other ways in which bullying occurs in our society.

Be that as it may, it is here now. However, the public discussion on the topic has just begun.

Bullying is not just an issue facing schoolchildren, although in many cases the problem starts there. It is in our homes, our work-places. It is in our language.

That may come as a surprise to some. We all think we can recognize bullying, and certainly sometimes it is obvious: "I'm going to beat you until you can't walk."

Few would question that is an instance of bullying. But what about "I'm against abortion 100% . . but I hate to tell you what I think about these people ever being born"?

Or, "I'm not homophobic but I don't think being gay is right. But I know some of the SWEETEST gay people. Dang."

So much of our understanding of the sentiment behind language comes from inflection, context, and a variety of other cues that are stripped out of communication when it is just text.

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Or are they? Plenty of bullying, harassment, or outright hate-speech occurs on Facebook, on Twitter, or in text messages. The sheer shrill volume of hate on the internet makes it seem that early detection of the sentiment behind such statements would be a valuable tool in the public discussion of bullying that is finally underway, if not a method to combat it directly.

There is, in fact, such a tool. There is a great deal of research being done in this direction in many domains, but the Beacon Initiative is putting it to use to track down bullying. What is amazing is that in their on-going beta testing, Beacon's software has detected all of the previous statements as instances of bullying. To do so, the software had to learn, and to go a great deal beyond simple keyword analysis.

It does this through sentiment analysis. Without getting too technical, your feelings can be “read” through the language that you use.

Social Media, Graffiti Art and Revolution

‘Social media’ conjures up thoughts of instant internet communication, global chatter over the web, computers, mobiles, tweets, posts etc. But there is a communication form that predates these modern tools – political street art. Street art can be dated back to ancient Egypt and throughout history it has been employed by those with a political point to make.

• Upcoming RSH show
• Raymond Salvatore Harmon about the significance of street art in a corporate culture
• Full Al Jazeera post

(First run on Disinfo.com)

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