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AI-Assisted Tweet Categorization for Public Display

Inform

What it collects that can identify you

About behaviour
Identifiable data
  • Tweets posted by members of the public on social media platforms. These are public posts but are authored by identifiable individuals whose content is analyzed and filtered by the system.
Run by
National Film Board (NFB)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Accountable organization, Vendor

What it is for

Inform

This system uses IBM Watson Tone Analyzer to automatically categorize tweets for display on the National Film Board of Canada's live website. It analyzes the emotional tone of social media posts to determine which content is shown to website visitors. The system is operated by National Film Board staff and affects members of the public who post on social media and whose content may be surfaced or filtered by the algorithm.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About behaviour
Identifiable data
  • Tweets posted by members of the public on social media platforms. These are public posts but are authored by identifiable individuals whose content is analyzed and filtered by the system.

Processing

Affect & Emotion Analysis
  • IBM Watson Tone Analyzer is specifically an affect and emotion analysis service, inferring emotional tone (e.g. joy, sadness, anger) from tweet text to drive categorization decisions.

What it does

Deciding (Analytical AI)
Human executes
  • IBM Watson Tone Analyzer classifies the emotional tone of incoming tweets. The categorization scores determine which tweets are selected for display; GC employees manage the resulting website presentation.

Outputs

A recommendation or prediction
Anonymized data
  • A categorization or tone score for each tweet that determines whether and how it is displayed on the NFB website. The output drives which public social media content is surfaced to website visitors.

Run by

National Film Board (NFB)
  • The National Film Board of Canada is the federal government department that deploys and operates this tweet categorization system on its live public website.

AI Register Entry 2526-NFB-ONF-003

Built by

IBM
  • IBM is the vendor that supplies the Watson Tone Analyzer service used to categorize tweets. The system was developed by the vendor and provided as an ongoing cloud service.

AI Register Entry 2526-NFB-ONF-003

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • Tweet categorization outputs and the resulting website display data are available to National Film Board staff who manage the system.
Available to vendor
  • As an ongoing cloud service, tweet data processed through IBM Watson Tone Analyzer is transmitted to and processed by IBM's systems. The extent of IBM's data retention is not specified in the register entry.

Stored

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data
Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data
Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data
The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides
This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes
This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous
This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the Helpful Places, not the vendor.

Your rights

  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyMembers of the public whose tweets may be analyzed have the right to know that automated tone analysis is used to categorize and filter social media content displayed on the NFB website. Contact the National Film Board of Canada for more information about how this system operates.

Risks and safeguards

  • Psychological harmAutomated tone analysis may suppress legitimate public speech if emotional content is incorrectly classified. The accuracy and cultural fairness of affect inference is contested.Safeguard: GC employees review and manage website display; the system supports rather than replaces human editorial judgment.
  • Reputational harmA person's tweet may be suppressed or excluded from display due to an inaccurate tone classification, potentially stigmatizing their content as negative or inappropriate without notice or recourse.Safeguard: the system affects public display rather than formal decisions about individuals; GC staff oversight provides a human check on algorithm outputs.