Analyzing Tweets To Identify Psychopaths 266
nonprofiteer writes "Researchers presenting at Defcon next week have developed a psychopathy prediction model for Twitter. It analyzes linguistic tells to rate users' levels of narcissism, machiavellianism and other similarities to Patrick Bateman. 'The FBI could use this to flag potential wrongdoers, but I think it's much more compelling for psychologists to use to understand large communities of people,' says Chris Sumner of the Online Privacy Foundation. Some of the Twitter clues: Curse words. Angry responses to other people, including swearing and use of the word "hate." Using the word "we." Using periods. Using filler words such as 'blah' and 'I mean' and 'um.' So, um, yeah."
Re:Using Periods? (Score:5, Funny)
What are you, some sort of psychopath? Flag him!
Re:Analyzing myself (Score:5, Funny)
So, you mean, is there any hope for me?
Sure there is. First, you'll seek twitter therapy and twitter assimilation resistance resistance. If that succeeds your tweets will be indistinguishable from 99% of the population (and most of your followers will finally be able to understand them).
... though not much hope for society at large if we're making DSM-V quality diagnoses based on twitter (unless we're determining that those who use twitter really have too much time on their hands).
If your TT&TARR fails you'll have to go to twitter court (most trials are very short) or simply go to twitter confessions and throw yourself on the mercy of 12 randomly selected twitter addicts. Once you're sentenced to twitter prison (where all you say and read are tweets) you'll be able to start paying your debt to the twitterverse. When the time comes for your parole review they'll analyze your tweets during your sentence to determine if you're ready for early tweetlease or if you need to try harder.
So yes, there is hope for you
Re:Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Lets see, one of the most well known trait of psychopaths is their tendency to lie.
Is that true ... or are you just a psychopath?
Re:Really? (Score:2, Funny)
Yes. If somebody uses Twitter, he can’t be right in his head in the first place. ^^
(There are only two types of "people" that use Twitter: 40+ midlife-crisis people who want to be "cool" again, and marketing companies posing as celebrities. No exceptions.)
I Fucking Hate... (Score:3, Funny)
I fucking hate stupidity like this being passed off as "sciency". I mean, next up they'll claim to use palm scanners to determine my future actions. Blah! We need to vote these types of articles down. It's worthless shit!
I guess the only thing between me and a psychopath is that I don't use The Twitter.
Idiots!
Re:There's a rumor going around (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, the real insight is Reverse Phrenology! Kicking people in the head to make them better people!
Re:Really? (Score:3, Funny)
"The ability to predict psychopaths in under 140 characters?"
***Psychopath test***
You think your crap is worth following? Check!
You follow the crap of strangers you have never seen? Check!
If one or more of the above are checked, congratulations, you're a Psychopath.
Re:Really? (Score:2, Funny)
The ability to predict psychopaths in under 140 characters? What have all these mental health professionals been doing? All these face-to-face interviews, "sessions" and observations. Maybe if they submitted their reports in only 140 characters they would have figured all this out a long time ago. /sarcasm
I have a crazy idea... Maybe they use multiple tweets? Mind blowing, I know, but 2 tweets add up to 280 characters! Maybe you could even use 3! Or even more?!
A longitudinal tweetment?
Re:Really? (Score:3, Funny)
Lets see, one of the most well known trait of psychopaths is their tendency to lie.
And that's why many of them become politicans.
Don't dare to mod this as funny.
Re:There's a rumor going around (Score:5, Funny)
I've been using a lot of voice recognition to IM lately.
SO I called someone and got voice mail.. and I said...
"Okay, I got your call and I'll see you later today PERIOD".
I was face slapping as soon as i hung up.
Oh and for the benefit of NSA and twitter type scanners...
I don't know what this shit is. Fuck that. I HATE it when they scan my posts. Period.
I mean blah blah blah, yada, yada. I mean, I don't give a flying fuck, um, what they think.
Thanks--- I was, ah, feeling psychopathic, and um, didn't want to put that in a separate post.
Re:Using Periods? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Using Periods? (Score:4, Funny)
i think the lack Capitalization and lack of Proper punctuation may be more Useful in Finding people suffering from Various Mental Disorders on the other hand it may merely Indicate a shortcoming In the posters education isn,t it obvious that when some one fails to Use punctuation and Capitalization correctly that they are a Tragedy in Waiting clearly the fbi is Onto Something or at least they Think They Are it cant be simply a case of people Being too lazy to punctuate their sentences or find the fucking shift key many messages on twitter come from mobile devices where it can be pretty damned inconvenient to apply capitals and punctuation marks as compared to a proper keyboard
What you did: it's there, and I see it.