Often times, however, citizens do not know where to begin to solve these problems. This is where the future of social media comes in. A digital monitoring center will monitor social media conversations and posts and will look for keywords to help solve problems before it gets too late or worse. The posts will be monitored by looking for key words or phrases. Once these key words or phrases are identified, the monitoring system will automatically send that person information on the topic they are looking for.
For example, if I send a tweet saying, "I need a passport but am not sure what I need to do," the monitoring system will pick up the key words "passport" and "what to do" and will instantly send me information and websites to look at. This is a great way to save taxpayers time and money, as well as the government officials' time. Any government program or assistance will automatically be monitored so that services and programs are improved.
The future of social media has a lot of potential, especially concerning the link between government services and citizens' needs.
Interesting. I can't help but wonder though, where does it stop? At what point should we say enough monitoring? How do we know they aren't monitoring other "key" words or phrases and entering us into databases of political dissenters or something along those lines? If the recent NSA leaks by Snowden have taught us anything, we know that they are already well into these types of programs, although not quite as "helpful" maybe for the general population. Alas, information, it's all in how we use it.
ReplyDeleteOn to your main point though, services like the ones mentioned in your post could significantly reduce personnel costs in call centers and the like. As technology becomes more and more prevalent, more people will turn to the internet to answer their questions rather than phone systems etc. If the government can implement a successful scan of social media sites, then perhaps they can reach out to individuals and answer their questions online, while freeing up operators and counselors to work on other, more pressing issues? The technology clearly exists, its would just be a culmination of USAJOBS website phrase tracker and the NSAs and CIAs social "outreach" programs :)
You make a great point, Toby. What could be used to justify monitoring key words or phrases is probably just a disguise for a different purpose. Sure, it could reduce personnel costs, but what is the real cost for the loss of liberty? The digital age is great in many ways, but it also has its disadvantages just as Snowden leaked or as told by George Orwell in 1984.
ReplyDelete