Hi, reporters! We’re back with another tool from an AI platform I mentioned a few years ago. Rolli is a journalist-made and journalism-focused AI tool for wading through the tsunami that is social media.
One thing I like is its sentiment analysis – basically, a rundown of how people feel about a certain topic. Lately, I’ve been traveling to conferences and hoping to dodge those extremely long lines at the airport. So what are people saying about TSA, our airport security?
Unsurprisingly, it’s not exactly positive. But one thing I like about Rolli is that it doesn’t (or at least, it tries not to) give you an echo chamber view. You might think that all the Facebook posts, or Reddit comments, or Insta reels about TSA are negative – but not so!
Here is Rolli’s AI-generated summary of Twitter over the last week: “The posts reflect a highly polarized and contentious discussion surrounding the TSA funding impasse and its impact on airport operations and personnel. Many posts criticize political parties, with accusations that Democrats or Republicans are blocking TSA funding, leading to unpaid TSA agents and chaotic airport conditions.”
Now, how many of those posts are from bots versus real people with real opinions? Unfortunately, that’s another obstacle we have to overcome these days (and to some point, Rolli can help with that too). But it’s interesting to get a sort of bird’s eye view of socials – sometimes it’s not as uniform as you’d think!