Media Spends Years Insisting Facebook Makes Society Worse; Then Trumpets A Poll Saying People Think Facebook Makes Society Worse

from the nice-work-there dept

It still is amazing to me how many people in the more traditional media insist that social media is bad and dangerous and infecting people's brains with misinformation... but who don't seem to recognize that every single such claim made about Facebook applies equally to their own media houses. Take, for example, CNN. Last week it excitedly blasted out the results of a poll that showed three fourths of adults believe Facebook is making society worse.

Now, there is an argument that Facebook has made society worse, though I don't think it's a particularly strong one. For many, many people, Facebook has been a great way to connect and communicate with friends and family -- especially during a pandemic when many of us have been unable to see many friends and family in person.

Either way it's undeniable that the traditional media -- which, it needs to be noted, compete with social media for ad dollars -- has spent the last five years blasting out the story over and over again that pretty much everything bad in the world can be traced back to Facebook, despite little to no actual evidence to support this. So, then, if CNN after reporting about how terrible and evil Facebook is for five years, turns around and polls people, of course most of them are going to parrot back what CNN and other media have been saying all this time. Hell, I'm kind of surprised that it's only 76% of people who claim Facebook has made society worse.

I mean, just in the past couple months, every CNN story I can find about Facebook seems to be completely exaggerated, with somewhat misleading claims blaming pretty much everything wrong in the world on Facebook. It's almost like CNN (and other media organizations) are in the business of hyping up stories to manipulate emotions -- the very thing that everyone accuses Facebook of doing. Except with CNN, there are actual human employees making those decisions about what you see. Which is not how Facebook works. Here are just a few recent CNN stories I found:

• Tech billionaire: Facebook is what's wrong with America
• Former Zuckerberg adviser: Facebook's problem is its business model
• 'We need to admit reality,' Facebook whistleblower says. Here's what might happen next
• Facebook's public relations strategy seems increasingly desperate
• Facebook's alarming plan for news feeds
• Wall Street Journal's Facebook Files series prompts comparisons to Big Tobacco
• Facebook is having a tougher time managing vaccine misinformation than it is letting on, leaks suggest
• How to protect ourselves against Facebook's failures

I mean, if all my info about Facebook came from CNN, I'd agree that it was making society worse. But I could just as easily argue that CNN is making society worse by presenting a very misleading and one-sided analysis of anything having to do with Facebook. Hell, CNN is owned by AT&T, which (1) has been trying and failing to compete with Facebook in the internet ads business, and (2) literally paid to set up an outright propaganda network known as OAN. I think there's tremendous evidence to suggest that AT&T is making society way worse than anything that Facebook has ever done.

This is not a defense of Facebook, because I still believe the company has lots and lots of problems. But the idea that a poll from CNN tells us anything even remotely useful or enlightening is just pure misinformation.

Filed Under: media, narrative, polls, society
Companies: cnn, facebook

What If The Media And Politicians Tried To Hold A Techlash... And No One Joined Them

from the oh,-look-at-that dept

There's been plenty of talk lately about the "Techlash" which has become a popular term among the media and politicians. However, what if the general public feels quite differently? Vox, which is not exactly known for carrying water for the tech industry, has released a new poll that shows that the public is overwhelmingly optimistic about technology, and thinks that technology has been a force for good in the world. This applies across the board for Democrats, Republicans, and independents.

Seventy-one percent of likely voters agreed with the tech-optimist statement: “Technology is generally a force for good. Large tech companies have provided innovations like vaccines, electric vehicles, bringing down the cost of batteries that store green energy, vegetarian meat options, and other ways that have improved our quality of life.” Only 19 percent agreed with the tech-pessimist statement: “Technology is generally a force for bad. Large tech companies are bad for workers, inequality, and democracy. The technological innovations they produce are not worth the cost.”

When put into chart form, the results are really, really striking:

Obviously, "technology" covers a lot more than the big internet companies -- and the messaging that Vox tested highlights mostly non-internet innovations. But, still. The fact that the "control" group -- ones who didn't even receive the specific messaging -- felt even stronger about the good technology does in the world than those who were first primed with statements about other kinds of technology is really something.

There are plenty of examples, certainly, of tech gone awry, but it really seems that the general public recognizes all of the good that innovation and technology have done for the world, and feel optimistic about it. Of course, none of that will stop "the narrative" of the techlash, because it's just too useful for many pushing it.

Filed Under: big tech, polls, surveys, tech optimism, techlash

How Should Social Media Handle Election Polls That Turned Out To Be Misinformation?

from the no-not-that-misinformation dept

It appears that the various election polls that predicted Joe Biden would become the 46th President of the United States eventually proved accurate -- the current President's temper tantrum notwithstanding -- but that doesn't mean the polls did a good job. In fact, most people are recognizing that the pollsters were wrong in many, many ways. They predicted a much bigger win for Biden, including multiple states that easily went to Trump. They completely flubbed many down ballot House and Senate races as well. Pollsters are now trying to figure out what went wrong and what these misses mean, coming on the heels of a set of bad predictions in 2016 as well. It's likely there isn't any simple answer, but a variety of factors involved.

However, what interests me is the simple fact that it turned out that the major polls were actually widely shared misinformation that spread all over social media, presenting incorrect information about the election -- some of which almost certainly had the likelihood of impacting voting behavior.

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying the polls were disinformation deliberately spread with the knowledge that it was false. I'm saying they were misinformation. Information that turned out to be false, but was spread, often widely, by those who believed it or wanted to believe it. And, it was exactly the kind of misinformation that had a decent likelihood of impacting voting behavior.

But that leaves open a big question: with so many people (including many in the media and a few legislators) demanding that social media websites "crack down" on "misinformation", especially with regards to an election, the fact that polling that turned out to be misinformation presents something of a challenge. I think most people would say that it would be crazy to say that social media shouldn't allow polling information to be spread (or even to go viral). Yet, with so many people calling for a crackdown on "misinformation" how do you distinguish the two?

Some will argue that they only mean the kinds of misinformation that is being spread with ill-intent, though that quickly leaps over to disinformation or requires social media companies to be the arbiters of "intent," which is not an easy task. Others will argue that this is more "well meaning" information, or that it's merely a prediction. But lots of other misinformation could fall into that category as well. Or some might argue that accurately reporting on what the polls say isn't misinformation -- since it's accurate reporting, even if the results don't match the predictions. But, again, the same could be said for other predictive bits of misinformation as well.

In short: any of the ways you might seek to distinguish these polls, you can almost certainly apply back to other forms of misinformation.

I raise this issue primarily to ask that people think much more carefully about what they're asking for when they demand that social media sites moderate "misinformation." Especially with an incoming Biden administration that has already suggested that one of its policy goals is to target misinformation online. It's one thing to say that, but it's another thing altogether to define misinformation in a manner that doesn't lead to plenty of perfectly legitimate information -- such as these misleading polls -- being targeted as well. At the very least, we should start to distinguish the important differences between misinformation and disinformation.

Perhaps, rather than demanding that the first response to misinformation be that it be removed, we should think about more ways to add more context around it instead.

Filed Under: content moderation, disinformation, elections, misinformation, politics, polls

Today In Useless Surveys: Some People Want Internet Companies To Stop Filtering News And Some Don't.

from the yeah,-that'll-work dept

Sometimes public sentiment is useful. And sometimes it's only useful in demonstrating how little the general public understands some issues. It would appear that a new survey done by the Knight Foundation about how the internet giants should handle "news" content is one of the latter ones. While there's lots of discussion about what the poll results "say," the only thing they really say is that the public has no clue about how the internet and news works -- and that should be the focus. We need much greater tech and media literacy. Unfortunately, the poll seems more likely to do the opposite.

There are two "headline" findings out of the report -- and the fact that the two are almost entirely contradictory should have maybe been a warning sign:

1. Internet platforms shouldn't make any effort to "customize" the newsfeed that you see and show the same thing to everyone
2. Internet platforms should be "subject to the same regulations as newspapers and TV stations."

Let's dig in a bit to the full survey. The first point is actually split into two separate parts, and the results aren't unsurprising, but (again) really seem to demonstrate media and tech illiteracy more than anything else. First, they were asked if they think it was a good or bad idea for platforms to target news based on interests, and the breakdown here really isn't that definitive in either direction. It's pretty split:

This seems perfectly reasonable because the question is kind of... dumb? I mean, it really depends on what kind of service I'm using. If I'm using Twitter, which is a feed-based system where the entire point is to have an ongoing stream of everything the people/organizations I follow tweet, then, I'd be against targeting news, because that's not what I use Twitter for. If it were something else, like Google News, where the entire point is to recommend news, then I'm a lot more open to it. So, the whole premise of this question seems silly. Really, the issue here is that people should know what kind of site they're looking at, and whether it's recommending news or giving you a firehose of news. That's all. But this question doesn't get at that, and I'm guessing that's why the responses are so mixed.

But then there's a question about whether platforms should "exclude" certain kinds of content. And we get the following responses:

And there's a related question about how concerned people are about platforms excluding news:

Again, while these results can make headlines, they all seem kind of useless. Most people feel that platforms should exclude content that is "misinformation." Well, duh. But that doesn't tell us anything all that interesting, really. And then the latter results seem to conflict with that view, because it claims that the vast majority of people are concerned that platforms excluding news would give people a biased view and restrict expression and such. But... they want to exclude misinformation.

Basically, it all goes back to one of the key problems that we've had with the big debate on content moderation. Tons of people are for moderation of "bad" content, but they worry (correctly) that moderation done badly will do bad things. And they don't trust the moderators from big tech companies. What does that really tell us? Not very much. Because all of these are conflating a bunch of different sites and different issues, such that anyone can basically cherry pick what they want out of it to try to support their own position.

Want to use this study to show that internet platforms should moderate content to get rid of "fake news" (without ever defining fake news)? Show the results that people want platforms to intervene there. Want to use this study to show that people don't trust internet platforms to moderate at all? Show the other results. What useful points can be gleaned from this? So far, mainly just that this study is useless. So, you see stories about this study claiming that Americans think platforms should stop filtering news, even though only some of the study says that, and other parts say the exact opposite.

And then there's another hidden tidbit that was the lead in some of the press coverage: that "Americans favor more regulation of internet sites." Regulation of what and how? Well, again, this study fails completely in that it never actually says. The only bit on regulation is the following:

Seventy-nine percent of Americans strongly or somewhat agree that major internet companies should be subject to the same rules and regulations as newspapers and broadcast news stations are. Twenty percent strongly or somewhat disagree.

That's it. Literally, that's it. There's a little bit more of a discussion about the breakdown based on age, but there is no discussion of what the fuck this even means -- because it means literally nothing. What "regulations" do newspapers and broadcast news face? Well, not much? But, it really kind of depends. Broadcast news may face some FCC regulations because they use the public airwaves. But newspapers don't. And internet sites don't. Because they don't use the public airwaves. Other than that, they already face the same basic "rules and regulations." So it's not at all clear how -- as a bunch of people have claimed -- this study supports the idea for "increased" regulation of internet sites.

Honestly, this feels like a kind of push poll and it's kind of shameful that the Knight Foundation and Gallup -- both of which should know better -- would do such a thing. After asking all these random amorphous meaningless questions about internet platforms, they then jump in with a question about regulating the platforms without defining or clarifying what regulations they're even talking about, in an area where the vast majority of the public will have literally no idea what those limited regulations are? What good is that other than to just get people to say "sure, they should all be on an equal footing."

About the only interesting tidbit I can find in the entire damn study is that those who are moderately technically savvy -- defined as "very familiar with computer algorithms" -- are marginally more inclined than those who are less tech savvy to say that end users should be responsible for finding accurate and unbiased news, rather than the internet platforms. But that's really about it.

So, what are we left with? A weird survey that feels more like a push poll, that lets anyone take the info and make any argument they want. When the only conclusions that seem to really come out if it are: (1) this is a really awful and confusing survey, and (2) most people have no idea what regulations there are around news.

Filed Under: news, polls, regulation, social media, surveys

How One Young Black Man Supporting Trump Massively Skews The LA Times Presidential Poll

from the poll-position dept

Let's jump right into this, because this post is going to be a bit on the wonky side. It's presidential silly season, as we have said before, and this iteration of it is particularly bad, like a dumpster fire that suddenly has a thousand gallons of gasoline dropped onto it from a crop-duster flown by a blind zombie. Which, of course, makes it quite fascinating to watch for those of us with an independent persuasion. Chiefly interesting for myself is watching how the polls shift and change with each landmark on this sad, sad journey. It makes poll aggregating groups, such as the excellent Project FiveThirtyEight, quite useful in getting a ten-thousand foot view as to how the public is reacting to the news of the day.

But sites like that obviously rely on individual polls in order to generate their aggregate outlooks, which makes understanding, at least at a high level, just how these political polls get their results interesting as well. And, if you watch these things like I do, you have probably been curious about one particular poll, the U.S.C. Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Daybreak poll, commonly shortened to the USC/LAT poll, which has consistently put out results on the Presidential race that differ significantly from other major polls. That difference has generally amounted to wider support for Donald Trump in the race, with specific differences in support for Trump among certain demographics. To the credit of those that run the poll, they have been exceptionally transparent about how they generate their numbers, which led the New York Times to dig in and try to figure out the reason for the skewed results. It seems an answer was found and it's gloriously absurd.

There is a 19-year-old black man in Illinois who has no idea of the role he is playing in this election. He is sure he is going to vote for Donald Trump. Despite falling behind by double digits in some national surveys, Mr. Trump has generally led in the USC/LAT poll. He held the lead for a full month until Wednesday, when Hillary Clinton took the nominal lead. Our Trump-supporting friend in Illinois is a surprisingly big part of the reason. In some polls, he's weighted as much as 30 times more than the average respondent, and as much as 300 times more than the least-weighted respondent.

Alone, he has been enough to put Mr. Trump in double digits of support among black voters. He can improve Mr. Trump's margin by 1 point in the national survey, even though he is one of around 3,000 panelists.

So, how does one person manage to skew a major national political poll in favor of one candidate to the tune of entire percentage points? Well, it turns out that a confluence of factors that include who is included on the poll and how often, how the poll respondents are weighted, and how this one particular voter fits into the demographic weighting converged to pretty much mess everything up. Let's start with the weighting.

The USC/LAT poll does things a bit differently than the other national polls. All polls rate respondents by demographics to correct for voting tendencies. The math can get gory and the NYT post does a good job of going through it, but you can think of it like this, for a very imprecise example: a poll respondent from the 18-35 demographic will be weighted less than a respondent from the 36-55 demographic, because the latter demo is more likely to actually show up and vote than the former. There is indeed some subjectivity in this, but the large demographic weighting drives the error margin down for the most part. But the USC/LAT poll deviates from the large-demo weighting and instead weights at very small demographic levels.

The USC/LAT poll weights for many tiny categories: like 18-21 year old men, which the USC/LAT poll estimates make up around 3.3 percent of the adult citizen population. Weighting simply for 18-21 year olds would be pretty bold for a political survey; 18-21 year old men is really unusual...When you start considering the competing demands across multiple categories, it can quickly become necessary to give an astonishing amount of extra weight to particularly underrepresented voters -- like 18-21 year old black men.

Which is how our single friend in Illinois became the poll's most weighted voter, being a 19 year old black man. The heavy weighting on tiny demographic categories caught him several times and, since he is voting for Trump, despite his demographic generally not voting for Trump, his heavily-weighted response skews things wildly. But that isn't all.

The USC/LAT poll does something else that's really unusual: it weights the sample according to how people said they voted in the 2012 election. The big problem is that people don't report their past vote very accurately. They tend to over-report three things: voting, voting for the winner and voting for some other candidate. They underreport voting for the loser. By emphasizing past vote, they might significantly underweight those who claim to have voted for Mr. Obama and give much more weight to people who say they didn't vote.

Which, again, catches our friend from Illinois. At nineteen, he obviously didn't vote in the last election. So his response is weighted even more. Using the poll's own data, the New York Times re-ran the poll using the same broad categories most other major polls used. When done, Hillary Clinton led in every single one of the iterations except for the one immediately proceeding the GOP convention. The difference between the poll's results as reported and what they would be with the normal weighted categories and the omission of the past vote weighting ranged form 1-4 points. In a political poll, that's enormous.

The final factor here is that the USC/LAT poll is a panel poll, which means that the same respondents are used each time the poll is run. So, our young black trump-voting man from Illinois got to skew these results nearly each and every time. The one time he failed to respond to the poll, Hillary Clinton suddenly led within it. As the NYT notes:

The USC/LAT poll had terrible luck: the single most overweighted person in the survey was unrepresentative of his demographic group. The people running the poll basically got stuck at the extreme of the added variance.

And, of course, the poll aggregators might include this poll, skewing the aggregate numbers as well. This isn't to say that all polls are skewed in the same manner. They aren't. The reason this is a story is because this poll is the outlier. But it is kind of fun to see how badly the sausage can be made if the methodology isn't in tune.

Filed Under: donald trump, election, hillary clinton, la times, politics, polls, usc/lat, weighting
Companies: la times, usc

Pew Asks Stupid Misleading Question About FBI Apple Fight, Gets Stupid Misleading Answers

from the shocking,-I-know dept

The folks over at Pew Research usually do pretty good work, but they decided to weigh in on the Apple / FBI backdoor debate by asking a really dumb poll question -- the results of which are now being used to argue that the public supports the FBI over Apple by a pretty wide margin. But, of course, as with everything in polling, the questions you ask and how you phrase them are pretty much everything. And here's the thing. The question asked was:

As you may know, RANDOMIZE: [the FBI has said that accessing the iPhone is an important part of their ongoing investigation into the San Bernardino attacks] while [Apple has said that unlocking the iPhone could compromise the security of other users’ information] do you think Apple [READ; RANDOMIZE]?

(1) Should unlock the iPhone (2) Should not unlock the iPhone (3) Don't Know.

But that's not the issue in this case!

As noted in the past, when it's possible for Apple to get access to data, it has always done so in response to lawful court orders. That's similar to almost every other company as well. This case is different because it's not asking Apple to "unlock the iPhone." The issue is that Apple cannot unlock the iPhone and thus, the FBI has instead gotten a court order to demand that Apple create an entirely new operating system that undermines the safety and security of iPhones, so that the FBI can hack into the iPhone. That's a really different thing.

And it does a massive disservice by Pew to (1) ask the wrong question and then (2) make people think that the public supports the FBI's view when Pew itself misrepresented the issues in the case in the first place. And of course, the mainstream media, like the Washington Post (who normally is better than this) puts out a bullshit story claiming that "Apple is fighting a war most Americans don't believe in." But that's not what the poll actually says. You'd think that reporters might actually take the time to understand the story and the poll first, but apparently that's too difficult, as compared to the easy, if misleading headline.

As Ed Snowden himself pointed out, this is nothing more than misinformation:

Pew poll finds when the government misinforms the public, the public is misinformed. Scientists baffled. https://t.co/8LcRg7ismw

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 22, 2016

But even that's not entirely accurate. In this case, it really seems like the fault is with Pew for asking a misleading question over an issue that is not up for debate here. And the press is similarly at fault for running with it and appearing to not understand either. Yes, the government is partially responsible for being misleading, but in this case, I'd put them third in line behind Pew and reporters. If people were accurately informed and actually understood the real issues, the poll would likely be quite different. But Pew didn't bother to understand the issue, and asked a questions that totally misrepresents the issue to the point that the results are actually completely meaningless to the ongoing debate.

Filed Under: all writs act, backdoors, doj, encryption, fbi, iphones, polls, san bernardino, unlocking
Companies: apple, pew

Democrats Screw Over Larry Lessig To Keep Him Out Of The Debates; Forces Lessig To Drop His Campaign

from the what's-up-dems? dept

Ever since Larry Lessig announced his campaign for the Presidency a few months ago, we noted that it wasn't just a long shot, but seemed more like a gimmick to get the (very real) issue of political corruption into the debates. I like Larry quite a bit and support many of his efforts, but this one did seem kind of crazy. I'm glad that he's willing to take on crazy ideas to see if they'll work, because that's how real change eventually comes about, but the whole thing did seem a bit quixotic. That said, the last thing I expected was that the Democratic Party would be so scared of him as to flat out lie and change the rules to keep his ideas from reaching the public. Yet, that's what it did, and because of that, Lessig has dropped his campaign for the Presidency. You can see the video of him explaining this decision below: An article from one of his advisers, Steve Jarding, explains the situation in more detail. We already knew that the Democratic Party had tried to keep him out of the debates by not "officially" welcoming him to the race -- as it had done with candidates like Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee who had raised less money and were polling lower than Lessig. And many polling operations hadn't included Lessig in their polls because they relied on the DNC's official welcome to start polling.

In response, Lessig had dropped his original gimmicky promise to resign the Presidency after getting campaign finance reform through Congress. Based on that, it was expected that the DNC would recognize his campaign. In the meantime, more polling operations started putting Lessig in their polls, and he was polling over 1% -- which was the threshold that the DNC had clearly told Lessig's campaign was necessary to cross to get into the debates. In fact, Lessig's campaign had specifically asked and gotten confirmation on the rules:

The DNC's rules for candidate participation in their debates were pretty straightforward--or so we thought. In August, before the Lessig campaign began, DNC Chair, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, announced the standards for being included in the debates. As she described the rule, a candidate had to have 1 percent in three DNC sanctioned national polls, "in the six weeks prior to the debate."

Hitting 1 percent would not be easy, but it was possible. And indeed, at the end of August already one national polling firm, PPP, found Lessig at 1 percent nationally.

Yet, about this time, Lessig's campaign manager received a troubling email from the DNC, suggesting the debate participation standards were different. The email included a memo that stated that the three polls had to be "at least six weeks prior to the" debate--contradicting what Wasserman-Schultz had said that they could be "in the six weeks prior to the debate." To try to clear up the contradiction, I arranged a call with the DNC. On that call, the DNC political director confirmed to me the rule was as the Chair had stated it--three polls finding 1 percent "in the six weeks prior to the debate."

But... then the rules magically changed, despite the fact that it shows that the previous debate wouldn't have allowed some candidates if the DNC had followed the same rules:

And indeed, that is precisely the rule that was applied in the first debate. As CNN specified in a late September memo, to qualify a candidate had to poll at 1 percent in the "polls released between August 1, 2015 and October 10, 2015." The first debate was October 12.

So, we believed we had our guidelines. And as such, we worked hard--and spent our campaign's resources--to meet this clarified goal. It wasn't easy, as most of the national polls didn't even include Lessig's name. But then a week ago, a Monmouth poll of Democrats nationally found him at the qualifying percentage. Then an NBC poll found the same. HuffPost Pollster now lists three polls at 1%. Since the Monmouth poll, no poll that included Lessig's name found him with anything less than 1%.

The new rules, which seem solely designed to block Lessig out:

Late last week, the DNC again changed the rules for participation in the debates. Just at the point that it seemed Lessig was about to get in, the DNC has shut the door.

We were informed of this change in a phone call late last week that I had with the DNC political director. During that call, I was told that the DNC participation standard for the debates was for a candidate to be at one percent in three polls conducted, "six weeks prior to the debate"--not the clarified rule cited earlier by Wasserman-Shultz and the DNC political director that a candidate had to be at one percent in three polls conducted "in the six weeks prior to the debate." To further make the point, the political director confirmed the new rule in a follow-up email to me.

Under this new rule, Lessig obviously cannot qualify for the November 14 debate. He would have had to qualify four weeks ago! Under this new rule, all the work--and expense--of the past four weeks has been for naught. The door has been shut. By DNC mandate, Larry Lessig won't be participating in the Democratic Party debates.

This seems pretty fucked up. Yes, politics is a nasty business, but let's face it: Lessig had no chance to win, but could have had a real impact on the campaigns and what followed by participating in the debates. And he did everything by the rules... and still got fucked over for it.

If Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and the Democratic National Party wanted to do a job highlighting just how corrupt the process is, they just did a great job.

Filed Under: debates, debbie wasserman-schultz, democratic party, dnc, larry lessig, polls, presidential campaign

Comcast Thinks Using Misleading Polls Will Somehow Fix Its Horrible Reputation

from the my-truth-is-better-than-your-truth dept

Comcast is currently trying to negotiate a new franchise agreement in its hometown of Philadelphia, but is running into the kind of fierce consumer disgust for the company that ultimately helped derail its failed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Back in April, the city was criticized for refusing to publicize a city survey on Comcast that took two years to conduct, but only Comcast executives were allowed to see. When the 571-page report (pdf) was finally released, the results weren't surprising: Philadelphia locals by and large loathe Comcast and its documentably atrocious customer service.

Of the roughly 1,700 people who submitted online comments for the city’s survey, around 99% of those were negative. Comcast, as you might expect, denied that the survey's findings were accurate, and promised the Philadelphia city council that it would provide evidence proving as much.

Fast forward a few months, and Comcast is now facing allegations that it's engaging in misleading polling in the Philadelphia region. Apparently, Comcast hopes to use garbage polling to "disprove" the obvious reality that Comcast just isn't very good at what they do. ISP lobbyists have leaned heavily on inaccurate polls for years. Especially push polls -- often using them to scare locals away from municipal broadband ahead of local votes, sometimes by implying that tax dollars will be used to fund pornography, or that the government would come in and try to ration their TV viewing.

The effort was first spotted by Eric Rosso, Political Director for Pennsylvania Working Families:

Just got a ridiculous push poll call from @comcast trying to garner results that favored them as a corporate citizen. Time to @CAP_Comcast.

— Eric Rosso (@ericopinion) June 7, 2015

Rosso notes that the questions were phrased in such a way as to generate positive responses to controversial programs like Comcast's Internet Essentials, a low-income broadband program we've noted as being intentionally restrictive and a bit of a PR show pony. Rosso says questions focused on Comcast's employment and tax record were also phrased in such a way as to generate limited or positive responses. Other locals well-versed in the practice of polling science agree that Comcast is up to no good:

"Chris Rabb, author of Invisible Capital: How Unseen Forces Shape Entrepreneurial Opportunity and a professor at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, also took part in the phone survey. He tells Consumerist it was one of the most egregious examples of non-electoral push polling he’s seen in decades. This was particularly true, says Rabb, when the survey transitioned to questions about demands Philadelphia could make of Comcast in the company’s renewed franchise agreement, and how these could increase costs for the company."

Comcast has confirmed that it has hired a "reputable third party, independent company" to conduct polls in the city, but has, rather unsurprisingly, been unable to provide an exact copy of the precise language used in the poll questions. Of course, in a few weeks the findings will be trotted out by city leaders as a shining example of Comcast's sterling reputation, and Philadelphia city leaders will likely grant Comcast a very cozy new franchise agreement that helps cement the cable giant's monopoly power in the city for another decade.

Filed Under: customer service, misleading polls, philadelphia, polls
Companies: comcast

Washington Post Shrugs Off Torture Because, You Know, It Polls Well

from the wait,-what?!? dept

We've written before about Jay Rosen's excellent explanation of "the church of the savvy," in which political reporters seem more focused on describing the "horse race" aspect of politics rather than the truth. It's the old story in which the press ignores, say, a really good concept because "politicians won't support it." A key giveaway for a "savvy" post is to focus on "what the polls say" rather than what reality says. That doesn't mean that polls are never useful or shouldn't be reported on -- but when they get in the way of the actual story, it can make for ridiculous results.

Take, as a quintessential example, the Washington Post's Aaron Blake giving us the latest on torture's polling numbers. Apparently, the polls tell us that Americans are okay with torture (even when they believe it's torture):

A Pew poll shows Americans say, by a two-to-one margin (56-28), say the CIA's interrogation methods after 9/11 "provided intelligence that helped prevent terrorist attacks."

Similarly, a CBS News poll shows that 57 percent of Americans think waterboarding and other interrogation techniques practiced by the CIA "provide reliable information that helps prevent terrorist attacks" either "often" or "sometimes." Just 8 percent say it "never" provides quality information, while 24 percent say it "rarely" does.

And finally, a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday morning shows people say 53-31 that the CIA's program did "produce important information that could not have been obtained any other way."

Now, an actual reporter might point out that (1) these Americans are wrong and (2) that it doesn't fucking matter whether or not torture works -- it's still reprehensible. But, instead, Blake concludes that, boy, this sure is a loss for the Democrats:

And as long as people believe torturing terrorism detainees leads to valuable information, the CIA's interrogation program — and torture in general — are unlikely to face a major public backlash.

This is the unhappy reality being confronted by Democrats who had hoped to make a splash with the CIA report.

So the only "reality" in the article is the fact that the public's depraved position is bad for one particular party. Apparently, it's not bad for "humanity" or common sense or human rights or America. It's just bad for one party? Rather than actually educating the public -- which reporters are supposed to be doing -- the focus is just on what these polling numbers mean for torture -- presented in the same way one might discuss the polling numbers for a regular election.

This isn't a political horse race we're talking about here. This is about a fundamental issue of human rights, and the press is acting like all that matters is torture's polling numbers?

Filed Under: aaron blake, church of the savvy, cia, journalism, polling, polls, torture, torture report, washington post
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