--- title: Secret Service' New Software Will Detect Sarcasm, Analyze Twitter Data description: A new software program will help the Secret Service monitor Internet activity by detecting sarcasm and analyzing users' feelings canonical: https://time.com/2820750/secret-service-sarcasm-internet-twitter-data/ author: Nolan Feeney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-04T00:44:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:10:20.180Z og:title: Secret Service' New Software Will Detect Sarcasm, Analyze Twitter Data og:description: A new software program will help the Secret Service monitor Internet activity by detecting sarcasm and analyzing users' feelings og:url: https://time.com/2820750/secret-service-sarcasm-internet-twitter-data/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Secret Service' New Software Will Detect Sarcasm, Analyze Twitter Data twitter:description: A new software program will help the Secret Service monitor Internet activity by detecting sarcasm and analyzing users' feelings twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Secret Service Plans to Get Really, Really Good at the Internet > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Jun 4, 2014 12:44 AM UTC  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Jun 4, 2014 12:44 AM UTC Detecting sarcasm on the Internet can be a challenge even for humans who don’t spend every waking minute on the web, so the Secret Service is saving itself some trouble by buying software that will detect sarcasm for the agency, according to a [work order posted Monday](https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=8aaf9a50dd4558899b0df22abc31d30e&tab=core&%5Fcview=0). That’s not all: the new software will also track web surfers’ _feelings_, mine their Twitter histories and perform several other functions related to collecting and analyzing vast amounts of Internet data, Nextgov reports. The full list of software needs is easy to make fun of, especially with the witty use of irony, but when your job is to protect the president’s life and watch for potential dangers, the ability to analyze sarcasm and weed out “false positives”—like dumb teenagers making joking threats—is probably worth the money. \[[Nextgov](http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2014/06/secret-service-software-will-detect-sarcasm-social-media-users/85633/)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2820750/secret-service-sarcasm-internet-twitter-data/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2820750/secret-service-sarcasm-internet-twitter-data/"},"headline":"Secret Service Plans to Get Really, Really Good at the Internet","datePublished":"2014-06-04T00:44:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:10:20.180Z","description":"A new software program will help the Secret Service monitor Internet activity by detecting sarcasm and analyzing users' feelings, among other things","url":"https://time.com/2820750/secret-service-sarcasm-internet-twitter-data/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Internet","White House","National Security","Secret Service"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2820750/secret-service-sarcasm-internet-twitter-data/","name":"Secret Service Plans to Get Really, Really Good at the Internet"}}]}] ```