MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Nearly 200 cities across the country, including six in Minnesota and western Wisconsin, are using a tech tool to keep an eye on what you say online.
Brooklyn Park and Woodbury have contracts with the company Zencity, which, according to its website, uses artificial intelligence to aggregate social media posts and comments about things happening in the community.
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Matt Rabe is a community engagement officer with the Brooklyn Park Police Department who oversees the Zencity deal.
“One of the things we wanted to focus on was … how can we augment our messaging to increase that trust, increase that legitimacy and raise that positive sentiment,” Rabe said.
BPPD contracted with Zencity in December 2020. The company says everything it gathers is public. It then produces reports for its clients that analyze the discourse on a given topic. No one is individually identified in the reports.
“Someone who says, ‘I hate the Brooklyn Park Police Department,’ we’d be able to see [that] negative sentiment,” Rabe said.
A typical analysis includes the total number of interactions on a topic, and it breaks down opinions. The city of St. Paul is using Zencity on a free, six-month trial basis.
Don Gemberling, a St. Paul resident and privacy advocate, says what Zencity does is like hearing every conversation at a cocktail party all night — and he doesn’t think that’s right.
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Woodbury has used Zencity since January, according to city communications...
Read Full Story: https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2021/08/24/cities-monitoring-resident-social-media-zencity/
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