Teens develop app so cyber-bullies can reconsider wording

A group of Edmonton high school students has developed an app designed to curb cyber-bullying.

The Sentiment Keyboard — developed by Jacob Reckhard, Christopher West and Ibrahim Elmallah under the supervision of Denilson Barbosa, associate professor of computer science at the University of Alberta, as part of the Ross and Verna Tate High School Internship Program — is designed to detect negative language and give the sender the option to reconsider their choice of words.

“The idea was people would use it before sending a message on social media or something. You have that line to give them a little warning that what they just said might hurt somebody’s feelings,” said Reckhard, who took on the project during the six-week internship after graduating from Strathcona High School.

Reckhard, now in his first year at the University of Alberta, said the Sentiment Keyboard was created to add a layer of awareness encouraging the user to think about the impact their words might have.

“Sometimes you type out things that you think are pretty harmless, and you don’t realize until you read it a second time that maybe I shouldn’t have said that. It just gives you a second opinion,” Reckhard said.

The Sentiment Keyboard uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to detect negative words in written text. The algorithm analyzes the sentence and formulates a total negativity score. Should the sender type out a phrase or sentence that is over the app’s threshold of negativity, a warning appears alerting the author that what they are writing could be hurtful.

“Before the text is posted or sent, the user has that feedback. What we’re trying to do is give the user the option to reconsider,” said Barbosa.