The California city of West Sacramento decided to spy on its citizens, becoming the first American city to utilize social media to do so.
Plenty of people don't like the cities they live in. Perhaps the crime rate is too high, or the city has ridiculous laws about the right to keep and bear arms. Perhaps the traffic is just terrible, or the city is notably corrupt, or the city has a history of making silly purchases, like a rail car that can't run during the winter.
It's not
uncommon to complain on social media about such a city. But now,
West Sacramento is the first city in the nation to
monitor social media accounts to see what residents are saying about the city. City officials claim that they're implementing the online tracking tool to 'listen more' to their citizens, and that it's 'good' for the citizenry. However, it seems like they're just doing whatever they want, and it's almost a surprise that the city alerted its citizens to the monitoring plot.
The city is using a system called Zencity, which is designed to crawl through social media posts on Facebook,
Twitter, and
Instagram, and find out what residents are saying about their city.
It sorts through topics of conversation on the various social networking sites, and determines what is trending, and whether it is positive or negative.
Then it provides a snapshot of the content to city leaders.
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