Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Sumter County to track citizens’ online conversations
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Old 11-10-2021, 09:11 AM
ThirdOfFive ThirdOfFive is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill14564 View Post
This is true - the paper seems to have an agenda and often phrases things in ways that promote it.

It's easy enough to look at the Zencity site to get a feel for what the software does. No one's private conversations will be monitored - that is illegal. But the software can monitor public forums and get a sense for whether a topic is popular or unpopular. Kind of like taking a poll.
Let's hope you are correct. This is pretty much what happens with our emails now: how many of us have sent a casual email to someone mentioning insurance, funeral arrangements, Baba ghanoush recipes, etc. etc. and have received the emails promoting a product relating to what we were talking about within a matter of hours?

Nevertheless, whenever a government entity decides to engage in surveillance of a group of people, no matter what the reason, my hackles go up. It may not legally be an invasion of privacy per se but it is certainly an improper use of Joe Taxpayer's dollar, and "an effort to improve their public relations image" seems to be a rather clumsy rationalization to say the least. If Sumter County wants the citizens to see them anymore favorable light, then ACT in a way that induces the citizens to see you that way.