Type of session : Play
Title: Why is social media hard to analyse?
Name of session facilitator: Diana Maynard
Approximate duration: 1-2 hours
Skill level: beginner
Proposal:
Tools for analysing tweets and other kinds of social media are everywhere these days, allowing us to understand what kinds of opinions are being expressed and who is talking about what. However, the reality might not be what you think! Most tools are actually pretty rubbish at “understanding” language, and especially the kinds of language used on social media. What happens when you run these analysers over sarcasm, irony, slang, mixed languages, and so on? In this session you can play with some of the GATE tools on social media datasets of different types. We’ll look together at what kind of problems might occur and discuss how these could be resolved. Most likely, we’ll spend our time laughing at funny examples of AI gone wrong.
Prerequisite: No experience required. Ideally, bring a laptop with GATE installed. gate.ac.uk/download
