​By the end of this year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) will have an artificial intelligence (AI)-based IT system that will monitor in real-time online content from social media platforms, news sites, blogs, as well as the accounts of the most influential people – journalists , celebrities and dignitaries. The goal is to identify, analyze and combat disinformation and propaganda.

On October 17, 2023, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAE) announced the winner of the tender for the supply of this IT system, a contract with a total value of more than 3.19 million lei, according to data from the electronic public procurement system. (SEAP).

The only offer at this auction was submitted by Mware Solutions.

This is after a similar procedure, which HotNews.ro wrote about in June 2023, was canceled on August 21, 2023 on the grounds that “only unacceptable and/or inappropriate proposals were submitted”.

Profit.ro also wrote about this contract concluded by MAE on Tuesday.

Who controls the company that will provide the AI ​​system for MAE

Mware Solutions is controlled by the following shareholders: Simpleminds Capital SRL (68.4%), Chirila dan Alexandru (8.9%), Zerotoone Investment SRL (8.9%), Evergent Investments SA (5.6%), Winners Holding Investments SRL (4.7%), Mobisoft SRL (2.7%) and Mitrica Constantinescu Christian (0.8%), according to Termene.ro.

Mware Solutions has 3 administrators, namely Burcă Flavius ​​​​Liviu, Oancea Ovidiu and Vasile Bogdan Cristian.

Simpleminds Capital SRL is controlled by Burcă Flavius ​​Liviu (52.17%) and Oancea Ovidiu (47.83%).

What the IT system should provide

The IT system should be available no later than December 20, 2023, according to the PDSER message.

• “The subject of the contract is the purchase of IT services for the development of an IT tool in the form of an integrated platform based on advanced algorithms of artificial intelligence for the analysis and verification of online content, which will be able to determine its origin, in order to detect, analyze, identify and combat disinformation in the online environment, contributing to the adoption of clear decisions on countering propaganda and disinformation in the online environment, in the spheres of responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• At the same time, training services related to the training of own personnel in the use of the developed IT tool will be purchased. (..)
• As part of the data collection process from sources such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., where the process involves some interaction with the relevant systems, during the warranty period and the support period of the delivered tool, collection modules will be designed and delivered to ensure a minimum amount of 500 GB of data collected per month, at no additional cost to MAE”, it is shown in the specifications.

The IT tool will be a web portal based solution where designated MAE representatives will have access to the necessary data and information.

It should contain several features, including:

Analysis of emotional states caused by the article

• The system will automatically assign the type of emotional state caused by the article (positive, negative, neutral) in at least Romanian and English languages, and allow their analysis according to media channel, trends, topics, etc. (..)
• At the same time, the participant will have to provide clear evidence of the existence at the time of bidding of the module for the analysis of the emotional state caused by the article, and for a minimum of Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, German, Portuguese languages. , Hungarian, which MAE will be able to purchase after the completion and production of the IT tool.

Analyze influencers and profiles

Discover the most active/influential authors, most popular sources and online communities.

Create an influencer profile:

• User name
• Number of posts on the topic
• Number of articles ordered by the state caused by the article (positive, negative, or neutral) associated with the posts
• Number of subscribers

Influencer accounts from different platforms will be merged into a single influencer profile (e.g. profiles of journalists, celebrities, dignitaries). Unification will be based on common attributes or the degree of similarity of profile images.

List of top 10 influencers for various topics/categories.

The most popular authors

• The purpose of this section is to enable users to identify the most popular profiles that mention controlled keywords and phrases.
• An influential author with a significant social reach clearly has a huge audience with massive social media access and simply reaches more people who may be interesting and worthy of attention.
• The section will include a list of the top 50 authors ranked by influence and social reach (with the option to view the entire list) (…)

The most active sites

A list of the most active sites containing monitoring phrases

– Name of the site

– Number of mentions

You can display the first 10 sites, with the option to open the full list.

The most influential sites

A list of the most influential domains containing monitored phrases

– Domain name

– Impact assessment

– Estimated number of visitors (etc.)

• Read more: MAE is building its AI-powered Big Brother: Why it will monitor news sites, blogs and the social media accounts of journalists, celebrities and dignitaries

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