I first heard about SamaritansRadar yesterday (October 29th) – that it was an app, and that its function was to help identify someone, a friend, who was feeling vulnerable. Then I began to hear more concerning comments about the way in which it was being applied and how the algorithm underpinning it could not manage sarcasm. Funny? Not really; I thought it probably couldn’t handle excerpts from professional papers or books, discussion amongst professionals, for instance, about suicide and depression, and also, more amusingly, the tweets my fiction writing friends often put out to publicise their books or stories. I decided to try it out, to register and see what the process was and what filters it allowed me to apply. But there were none, it was a simple activation process that then embedded the app in my twitter account and set about monitoring all the people I follow. I know very few of them in any other context and the lack of constraints, consent, or any kind of privacy protection was alarming. I revoked its permission straight away and emailed the Samaritans with my concerns. A good idea poorly implemented? Maybe, but let’s please not drive twitter users away by well-meaning but covert surveillance.