Filtering message posts in a social network

• US 9,172,671 B2
• Filed: 04/18/2012
• Issued: 10/27/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bates, Cary L., Nikolai, Jason A., Prentice, Jeffrey A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Gillis, Brian J
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lin, Steve
• Application Number:
  US13/449,507
• Publication Number:
  US 20130282835A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,287 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709/217
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services

Abstract

A social media mechanism processes messages for content that may require filtering of recipients of the message, and informs a user who drafted the message when the message might need to be filtered so it is not sent to all potential recipients of the message. The user may then select to send the message to all potential recipients, or to filter the recipients so the message is sent to less than all of the potential recipients. User profiles are created and maintained, and may include information that helps to determine when filtering of messages is desirable. Feedback buttons are also provided to provide feedback when a user does not like a message.

Claims

1. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor;

a memory coupled to the at least one processor; and

a social media mechanism residing in the memory, the social media mechanism processing a message by a user to determine whether the message includes words, word stems or phrases that indicate recipients of the message should be filtered, wherein processing the message comprises;

parsing the message into words, word stems and phrases,

comparing the words, word stems and phrases in the message with a list of filtered words, word stems and phrases;

scoring the message according to the words, word stems and phrases in the message that are in the list of filtered words, word stems and phrases and according to a user profile corresponding to the user; and

compares the score with a threshold value;

wherein the social media mechanism comprises a plurality of user profiles, each user profile including public profile information that is visible to other users and private profile information that is not visible to other users, wherein the private profile information includes feedback information from other users regarding previously-sent messages by a user corresponding to the user profile; and

when the message has a score that exceeds the threshold value, the social media mechanism prompts the user to indicate the recipients of the message should be filtered, and in response to the user prompt, when the user enables the filtering of the recipients of the message, the social media mechanism posts the message to less than all of the recipients, and when the user does not enable the filtering of the recipients of the message, the social media mechanism posts the message to all of the recipients, and when the message has a score that does not exceed the threshold value, the social media mechanism does not provide the user prompt and posts the message to all of the recipients.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the social media mechanism recommends to the user a message group for the message based on the content in the message.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the social media mechanism recommends to the user a user group for the message.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the social media mechanism provides a plurality of feedback buttons to the user for the user to provide feedback to another user, the plurality of feedback buttons including an inappropriate content button, an inappropriate tone button, an I'"'"'m offended button, a didn'"'"'t like your message button, and a remove from authorized users button, wherein activating one of the plurality of feedback buttons causes information to be added to the private profile information of the user who posted a message.

5. An article of manufacture comprising software stored on a non-transitory computer readable storage medium, the software comprising:

a social media mechanism that processes a message by a user to determine whether the message includes words, word stems or phrases that indicate recipients of the message should be filtered, wherein processing the message comprises;

parsing the message into words, word stems and phrases,

comparing the words, word stems and phrases in the message with a list of filtered words, word stems and phrases;

scoring the message according to the words, word stems and phrases in the message that are in the list of filtered words, word stems and phrases and according to a user profile corresponding to the user; and

compares the score with a threshold value;

wherein the social media mechanism comprises a plurality of user profiles, each user profile including public profile information that is visible to other users and private profile information that is not visible to other users, wherein the private profile information includes feedback information from other users regarding previously-sent messages by a user corresponding to the user profile; and

when the message has a score that exceeds the threshold value, the social media mechanism prompts the user to indicate the recipients of the message should be filtered, and in response to the user prompt, when the user enables the filtering of the recipients of the message, the social media mechanism posts the message to less than all of the recipients, and when the user does not enable the filtering of the recipients of the message, the social media mechanism posts the message to all of the recipients, and when the message has a score that does not exceed the threshold value, the social media mechanism does not provide the user prompt and posts the message to all of the recipients.

6. The article of manufacture of claim 5 wherein the social media mechanism recommends to the user a message group for the message based on the content in the message.

7. The article of manufacture of claim 5 wherein the social media mechanism recommends to the user a user group for the message.

8. The article of manufacture of claim 5 wherein the social media mechanism provides a plurality of feedback buttons to the user for the user to provide feedback to another user, the plurality of feedback buttons including an inappropriate content button, an inappropriate tone button, an I'"'"'m offended button, a didn'"'"'t like your message button, and a remove from authorized users button, wherein activating one of the plurality of feedback buttons causes information to be added to the private profile information of the user who posted a message.

9. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor;

a memory coupled to the at least one processor;

a social media mechanism residing in the memory and executed by the at least one processor, the social media mechanism processing a message by a user to determine whether the message includes words that indicate recipients of the message should be filtered, the processing of the message by the social media mechanism comprising;

parsing the message into words, word stems and phrases;

comparing the words, word stems and phrases in the message with a list of filtered words, word stems and phrases;

scoring the message according to the words, word stems and phrases in the message that are in the list of filtered words, word stems and phrases and according to a user profile corresponding to the user;

comparing the score with a threshold value;

when the score exceeds the threshold value, prompting the user to indicate the recipients of the message should be filtered;

in response to the user prompt, when the user enables the filtering of the recipients of the message, posting the message to less than all of the recipients;

in response to the user prompt, when the user does not enable the filtering of the recipients of the message, posting the message to all of the recipients; and

when the score does not exceed the threshold value, not prompting the user and posting the message to all of the recipients; and

wherein the social media mechanism comprises a plurality of user profiles, each user profile including public profile information that is visible to other users and private profile information that is not visible to other users, wherein the private profile information includes feedback information from other users regarding previously-sent messages by a user corresponding to the user profile.

10. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the social media mechanism recommends to the user a message group for the message based on the words in the message.

11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the social media mechanism recommends to the user a user group for the message.

12. The apparatus of claim 9 wherein the social media mechanism provides a plurality of feedback buttons to the user for the user to provide feedback to another user, the plurality of feedback buttons including an inappropriate content button, an inappropriate tone button, an I'"'"'m offended button, a didn'"'"'t like your message button, and a remove from authorized users button, wherein activating one of the plurality of feedback buttons causes information to be added to the private profile information of the user who posted a message.