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So what are you saying? Initially you were replying to a comment saying they are non political, claiming they targeted conservative groups. Then you point out

by mehwoot 10y ago

So what are you saying? Initially you were replying to a comment saying they are non political, claiming they targeted conservative groups. Then you point out they targeted "open source software" as well, and if you read the wikipedia article it says "progressive", "occupy", "open source software", "medical marijuana", and "occupied territory advocacy" were all targeted keywords. So do you think it was political or not?

zaroth 10y ago
Oh it certainly was political. I did not mean to imply that they only targeted conservative groups, but they absolutely did not fairly assess all "social benefit" applications without regard for political sentiment. Unfortunately, their evaluations were political when they should not have been. They tried to fix a problem with "social benefit" applications in general, but keywords were the wrong way to do it. This is not currently a job for automation, they must evaluate all applications fairly. Or to put it differently, the optimal solution for the problem of fraudulent applications does not include a PR disaster and FBI investigation. Hopefully they do better next time. I think the perspective people miss on this, is that mistakes were made, but it wasn't personal. The system broke, but not in a criminal intent kind of way. Maybe the best way to say it, is the IRS stuck their foot in politics, and then tried to shake it off and hopefully clean their shoes. I don't mind continuing the discussion, but I'm sorry for the flame-bait. I volunteer the thread for detach-and-mark-off-topic.
- Bahamut 10y ago
  Your use of the word political here is incorrect: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/political http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/politic... - typically in situations such as this, motive is ascribed to it, and the findings were that there was no motive for influencing politics through this misstep. There is quite a difference between political actions and poor processes, which the Wikipedia article seems to confirm in its entirety.

by mehwoot 10y ago

zaroth 10y ago

Oh it certainly was political. I did not mean to imply that they only targeted conservative groups, but they absolutely did not fairly assess all "social benefit" applications without regard for political sentiment. Unfortunately, their evaluations were political when they should not have been. They tried to fix a problem with "social benefit" applications in general, but keywords were the wrong way to do it. This is not currently a job for automation, they must evaluate all applications fairly. Or to put it differently, the optimal solution for the problem of fraudulent applications does not include a PR disaster and FBI investigation. Hopefully they do better next time. I think the perspective people miss on this, is that mistakes were made, but it wasn't personal. The system broke, but not in a criminal intent kind of way. Maybe the best way to say it, is the IRS stuck their foot in politics, and then tried to shake it off and hopefully clean their shoes. I don't mind continuing the discussion, but I'm sorry for the flame-bait. I volunteer the thread for detach-and-mark-off-topic.

Bahamut 10y ago
Your use of the word political here is incorrect: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/political http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/politic... - typically in situations such as this, motive is ascribed to it, and the findings were that there was no motive for influencing politics through this misstep. There is quite a difference between political actions and poor processes, which the Wikipedia article seems to confirm in its entirety.