Secret Service: We Want Your Tweets, Just Not the Sarcastic Ones

The Secret Service is looking for a program that will filter through the thousands of tweets their social media account receives, specifically to detect sarcasm.

The Secret Service wants to find a program that will sort, track and analyze tweets, but weed out the snarky ones (Image source: AFP/Getty Images)

The "Computer Based Annual Social Media Analytics Subscription" program work order, listed Monday, outlines the request outlines the request for several capabilities including "influencer identification" and "access to historical Twitter data."

And “ability to detect sarcasm."

The officials said they are also in need of “sentiment analysis,” and "heat maps" or graphics showing user trends by color intensity.

"The Secret Service has had a Twitter account for several years. We are trying to procure a tool that can automate the social media monitoring process; synthesizing large sets of social media data," spokesman Brian Leary told CBS. The service is hoping to gain the ability to navigate efficiently through old tweets, and search in multiple languages and wants the contractor to develop automated technology that will "synthesize large sets of social media data" and "identify statistical pattern analysis," according to the work order.

But technology experts say this might be asking for a bit too much.

"We are not currently aware of any automated technology that could do that (detect sarcasm). No one is considered a leader in that," Jamie Martin, a data acquisition engineer at Sioux Falls, SD based Bright Planet, told CBS.

But if you feel your technology firm is up to snuff and can develop the sarcasm-detector the Secret Service is after, bidding will be open on the contract until June 9.

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(H/T: NextGov)

Follow Elizabeth Kreft (@elizabethakreft) on Twitter.