Using tweets to predict real-time food shortages:
The sentiments and emotions expressed in tweets on Twitter can be used in real time to assess where supply chain disruptions due to a pandemic, war or natural disaster may lead to food shortages, according to researchers at Penn State and the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar. They found that food security-related tweets that expressed anger, disgust or fear were strongly correlated with actual food insufficiency in certain U.S. states early in the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings can potentially be used to develop a low-cost early warning system for identifying where food-security interventions are most needed, according to the researchers.
"The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related supply-chain disruptions prompted worldwide concerns about food access and availability, and many people took to social media to express these concerns," said Stephan Goetz, professor of agricultural and regional economics at Penn State and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD). "We wanted to see if real-time tweets could be used to identify specific states or regions facing food supply or insecurity problems."
Goetz said that rather than looking only at the number of tweets related to food insufficiency, he and his colleagues wanted to know how people actually felt about their food situation. Using artificial intelligence, they identified the sentiments and emotions associated with the tweets, which allowed them to separate tweets expressing concerns about the food supply from those expressing relief or contentment.
[...] The artificial intelligence language model they used can detect sentiments of negative, neutral, and positive; and emotions of anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise or neutral.
For example, this tweet was classified as having positive sentiment and expressing joy: "God bless America's food supply chain, from the producers to the distributors to the grocers: The food supply chain, they say, remains intact and has been ramping up to meet the unprecedented stockpiling brought on by the coronavirus pandemic."
In contrast, this tweet was classified as negative and expressing fear: "A food bank executive in Louisiana who worked through Hurricane Katrina said he had never witnessed such a combination of need, scarcity and anxiety. 'Crazy' pretty much sums it up,' he said."
[...] When averaged across all states over the six-month period, tweets expressing the emotions of anger, disgust and fear were significantly correlated with actual state-level food insufficiency rates reported in the HPS. At the state level, tweets that expressed fear were most strongly correlated with actual food insufficiency in California, Illinois, New York, Texas and Wisconsin. Tweets expressing anger or disgust were positively correlated with food insufficiency in 12 states.
Goetz said that further research is needed to assess whether this method of identifying localized food-security emergencies can replace more expensive and time-consuming methods, such as surveys.
Journal Reference:
Stephan J. Goetz et al, Food insufficiency and Twitter emotions during a pandemic, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy (2022). DOI: 10.1002/aepp.13258
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:56AM (5 children)
We have cell phone coverage even in the way-out boondocks - we know if there is a food shortage and where. The problem is getting the food to them.
What is the point if this so-called research?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @04:56AM (3 children)
To determine that food shortages are strongly correlated to a Biden presidency.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @05:47AM (2 children)
OK, thanks to my wife, we have over six hundred rolls of toilet paper in the bunker. Are we safe? I am thinking about exchanging the 10,000 rounds of .50 Barrett, that I will probably never use, for a pallet of canned beans, and another gross of t-paper. What do our survivalist stark raving mad AynRandian Galt's Gulch Livertarians think I should do? Deal? No deal? And who is going to enforce the contract?? Oh, noes!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @05:54AM (1 child)
You're overstocked. You only need two bullets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @05:05PM
Conservatives always seem to push death, strange. Almost like they are a death cult. Makes sane people wonder if it is tied to the christian loonies that think trump and putin will bring about the rapture.
(Score: 1) by Coligny on Thursday April 14 2022, @02:40AM
Well… to be sure that people that might not have food say they are hungry…
It parallels the usefulness of twitter…
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:58AM
Ruralians pronounce the acronym, "nekked."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 13 2022, @04:03AM (3 children)
A reporter buttonholed three delegates to a UN conference on hunger to ask, "Excuse me, please tell me your opinion on potentially looming food shortages." The Russian delegate replied, "What does 'opinion' mean?" The American delegate answered, "What does 'shortage' mean?" The Israeli delegate demanded, "What does 'excuse me' mean?"
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @06:03AM (2 children)
Sad to see an expatriot Montanan reduced to anti-semitism. You should be ashamed, Phoenix666. Remember where you come from. The Four Georgians became Montanans, it did not go the other way around. And, Fuck Gov. Giantfortune! And Maryland Matt! And all the other carpetbaggering billionaires that have taken over the Montanan Republican Party, taking it away from real Montanans. Such as it ever was. Phoenix? Where do you stand? Or are you too old, and too long gone to stand on your own?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday April 13 2022, @01:16PM
It's an Israeli joke, told to me by an Israeli.
Try to stop being a reflexive hater.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:13PM
As rude as the French?
The Jews would consider being hated as much as the French a MASSIVE improvement!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @04:46AM (1 child)
FUCK YOU JAMES KIRK YOU STOLE MY WIFE AND I'LL NEVER ACCEPT HER BACK SHOULD SHE COME CRAWLING.
YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER YOU GOT AIDS FROM FUCKING SPOCK AND NOW SHE HAS IT TOO I BET.
FUCK YOU, KIRK YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKER I'LL PISS ON YOUR GRAVE.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @05:22AM
Keep your wife out of my yard, I'll keep my yard out of your wife.
- Kirk
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday April 13 2022, @05:31AM (3 children)
This is ridiculous. Using Twitter for anything other than psyops is insanity. Look where the woke mob and social media got us. Destabilized governments. Covid lockdowns. Mob's canceling each other and anyone in their path. This is absolutely not real world, and drawing conclusions from Twitter is utter insanity. This is lazy at best.
For Example:
When the vast majority of the people that were severely impacted beyond a normal flu season were well out of working age, you can't blame COVID.
This was caused by the politicians bowing down to the social media mobs, amplified by the CNN's of the world. In concert, these two forces are damaging.
Old politics may be slow, but when it comes to making big decisions, turning a large boat, slowly, is just fine.
Life wasn't terrible yesterday, therefore there is not an emergency in need of a total panic. If these idiots keep it up though, we will all be in serious trouble.
The rules of life never change. Stay calm. Stay cool. The house is not on fire. Think. Don't react, plan. If you're doing things out of fear, you're doing them wrong, unless the oxygen is slipping out of your space-craft and you're 90 billion miles from home.
For those that will get upset with facts. I made sure to cite sources reputable to the folks that seem to think that I've come to the wrong conclusions:
More people died of Fentanyl than COVID in young city -> https://abc7news.com/fentanyl-overdose-san-francisco-side-effects/11718711/ [abc7news.com]
Masks everyone wears, was shamed and canceled for saying were ineffective and nothing but social posturing, found ineffective and nothing but social posturing -> https://www.kwtx.com/2022/01/08/health-experts-warn-cloth-masks-are-ineffective-against-covid-19/ [kwtx.com]
For the Right -> https://nypost.com/2022/04/11/ny-handled-covid-19-lockdown-poorly-florida-among-best-study/ [nypost.com]
For the Left -> https://www.sfgate.com/california-politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-California-Florida-COVID-19-16691184.php [sfgate.com]
FLU vs. COVID. Under 65, there is no difference. As I've said since March, 2020, life should have gone on for the rest of us instead of destroying the entire planet. Yes, the rest of the world follows what the United States and Europe does, write or wrong. Want to talk about the drug war?
FLU - https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html [cdc.gov]
COVID - https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographicsovertime [cdc.gov]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @05:56AM (2 children)
Calm down.
The only cancellation has been of aristarchus, and that was only because he spoke truth to power, and would not shut up. Common characteristic of philosophers. And, he should be restored, because it was not a Mob, but only a single lying Soylentil, namely, Runaway1956, that got this done, in violation of SoylentNews founding principles. Not that it matters much, anymore. Posting is decreasing. Any Soylentil with any sense has left, and all we are left with the Runaway/Fusty Gun blog. Stand yer ground, me mateys! (Strange turn of phrase, for a sailor. )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:31AM
As a bystander, I cannot help but notice the Spam Mod on the parent post. Really? Are we that petty on SN that any mention of the recent injustice is to be immediately silenced? Perhaps we are, I guess, now. I always hoped for something better, but what I got is Runaway. Sad, just sad.
Um, I think this message is in error. I cannot login to post. So much for free speech on the internet. I might as well be posting to Facebook, or TruthSocial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @10:58AM
Aristarchus is a raging homosexual whose unrequited gay love for Runaway has made him so butthurt that he's obsessed and acting out. He's a delusional self-absorbed little miscreant faggot who feels the need to stalk Runaway because it's the closest he can come to satisfying his perverted desires. Aristarchus is also a massive abuser of the spam mod and is quite possibly responsible for using it improperly on an insightful comment [soylentnews.org] I posted in another story. Aristarchus is just butthurt that my comment there doesn't ascribe to his beloved critical racist theory and correctly identifies chinks and pajeets as the primary sources of excess rice husks.
Of course we all know that you are aristarchus, a miserable little faggot who now spams AC comments APK-style because the admins disabled your aristarchus account and ruined your delusion that you're an ancient Greek philosopher.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @08:27AM (1 child)
What's the value of having predictions in real-time? Wouldn't predictions be much more valuable if we could have them ahead of time?
Sigh. Kids these days. In my time, such things were called "observations".
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 13 2022, @03:15PM
Poor wording. They are trying to predict them ahead of time.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2022, @01:23PM
So we can know if they are hungry
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/12/more-than-250m-people-could-be-pushed-into-extreme-poverty-in-2022-oxfam [theguardian.com]