Zayn Malik’s departure shows the limitations of auto-sentiment scoring in digital listening tools

Zayn Malik’s departure from One Direction has triggered a mountain of social media reactions within minutes of the news breaking.

It’s also a salutary warning against relying on auto-sentiment scoring in digital listening tools as the algorithms are churning out scores showing the story to be dominated by negative sentiment.

But scratch under the surface and what is really being said is that millions love One Direction and millions love Zayn Malik. Calling that a negative reaction hinders rather than helps understand what’s really going on.