

Facebook Sentiment Engine? - jwt
http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2009/02/02/02readwriteweb-facebook_sentiment_engine.html

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madmanslitany
I fully acknowledge that this is the kind of thing that can give privacy
advocates nightmares about what Facebook and Google are capable of, but I'm
incredibly excited by ideas like this. Things like this are what keep me
interested in Computer Science, the possibility of being able to capture and
study real, raw data from people outside of a laboratory setting as they
respond to the most important current events of their day. Again, there's a
lot of potential for abuse, but I'd be intrigued to see what lawmakers and
corporations could do with information on how people at large "really" felt
about them.

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tsally
As someone who is studying Computer Science, I understand and even share your
enthusiasm for exciting new ideas. The technical challenge that a problem like
this presents is very, very interesting. That being said, history is full of
exciting scientific problems whose solutions have been abused. I certainly
don't have a solution, but it seems to be a common theme associated with
scientific innovation :-).

