The sample selection / non-response bias highlighted in this write-up is a _Big Idea_ problem I've been thinking about recently:
Limitations...*Trust in surveys and political leanings:*
About 95 percent of people contacted for the panel chose not to participate because of lack of trust in having a third-party application installed on their computer or other concerns for privacy.
Think about that - a reputable, privacy-first organization asked people to opt-in to fully consented, voluntary, compensated research and ~95% declined! I can't even imagine what hidden skews are present in the 5% that agreed. This issue is systemic in consumer research and impacts both public (e.g. election polling, U.S. census) and private (pharmaceutical trials, media/advertising research, voluntary AI/ML training daat) polling.
Governments and businesses make biased, potentially discriminatory decisions if a non-random segment of the population chooses to never be counted. The ad industry attempts to circumvent this through non-voluntary passive tracking, which trades off non-response bias with bulldozing user privacy. The headwinds are only growing too, as consumer awareness of privacy lapses and the politicization of polling continues to reduce who participates in opt-in research.
Finding a solution to this that doesn't resort to privacy-eroding tactics is a moonshot level problem in terms of the size-of-the-prize if solved.
The key thing here is trust. Trust is a resource like a rainforest: you can exploit it sustainably, or you can get a far greater profit by destroying it. Trusting people are a resource that can be exploited for fraud, which the internet is great at producing. It's not really surprising that random organizations find low trust.
It is however very unfortunate, as historically being a "high trust society" has been a great advantage of the west. And it's going to take a lot of repairing.
Is it a problem that should be solved? Shouldn't people have the right to live in peace and not be forced to participate in some survey?
I also don't really see the problem with 95% of people declining; they made the smart choice. If I was a regular Facebook user I would also decline because the account would contain tons of very sensitive data such as DMs and running an untrusted, unknown application on my main computer is also a major dealbreaker.
Just do what Nielson does: Pay people for their data.
I don't think it's that difficult; if pay-for-survey skews results toward overvaluing the opinions of the poor and/desperate-for-money, well, then it would be the first time in history.
In my opinion, this is a symptom of weak/ineffective regulation in the personal information space. The consequences for data breaches to the guilty parties have been minimal at best. Meanwhile responsibility for fraud has been pushed onto individuals via concepts like "identity theft". Even if the company in question was indeed reputable and well-known, most people don't have the technical expertise to evaluate any claims about security or privacy. Who would take that risk knowing that at the end of the day most of the consequences will fall on them personally?
Are you a shill for them? "Reputable" as mainstream media? "Reputable" as in the fake news is reputable?
Whenever someone claims "I am reputable" you should run away as fast as you can.
This "I am reputable" is purely subjective based on your own biases and incentives.
No one can be reputable in the news space and people must understand this as soon as possible: everyone lies, even natural science which is supposed to be the gold standard gets so many studies wrong.
The only way news organizations stay alive is either by:
a) clickbait articles which eventualy devolves into lying or exaggeration at best.
b) News orgs that are financed by private people/corporations who have their own agendas.
There is no such thing as a "reputable" news source.
Perhaps one in ten thousand jounralist is still legit, so that he is an actual investigative journalists. But 99.999 of "journalists" are actually just script readers and clickbait writers.
Do you not see where "I am reputable" leads to? Soon the "I am reputable" organization will get political power and then they will make laws based around "my reputable reporting" and this will lead to censortship.
"I am reputable" always leads to censorship down the line since it implies that "my opponent is not reputable and is lying and MUST BE SHUT DOWN IN THE NAME OF DEMOCRACY".
Note that facebook has all this data freely available. They probably run very similar analyses.
But they don't act on them, or publish their results.
Lack of access to this data is a big problem for social media researchers that needs to be solved.
While I see where you're coming from, I don't really see how this could be addressed without very fat NDAs and a serious risk of leaking personal data. For comparison, you wouldn't expect say Apple to give researches access to their proprietary intellectual property. I very much agree with you that it could be very beneficial, I struggle to construct an argument for why Facebook should do this.
People working at facebook would love to publish this data, and let other researchers take a look...
But the simple fact is that any high profile analysis of this data will simply further fuel debate about facebook overreach and harm facebook's business.
Opting to relinquish one's data to a principled, accountable, and transparent organization driven by clear objectives and beholden to a strict privacy policy, is very different to what one does when they sign up to Facebook.
[+] [-] typeiierror|5 years ago|reply
Governments and businesses make biased, potentially discriminatory decisions if a non-random segment of the population chooses to never be counted. The ad industry attempts to circumvent this through non-voluntary passive tracking, which trades off non-response bias with bulldozing user privacy. The headwinds are only growing too, as consumer awareness of privacy lapses and the politicization of polling continues to reduce who participates in opt-in research.
Finding a solution to this that doesn't resort to privacy-eroding tactics is a moonshot level problem in terms of the size-of-the-prize if solved.
[+] [-] nitwit005|5 years ago|reply
Even if it's an organization you recognize, verifying it's not someone using their name for some sort of scam isn't always straightforward.
[+] [-] pjc50|5 years ago|reply
It is however very unfortunate, as historically being a "high trust society" has been a great advantage of the west. And it's going to take a lot of repairing.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|5 years ago|reply
I also don't really see the problem with 95% of people declining; they made the smart choice. If I was a regular Facebook user I would also decline because the account would contain tons of very sensitive data such as DMs and running an untrusted, unknown application on my main computer is also a major dealbreaker.
[+] [-] ForHackernews|5 years ago|reply
I don't think it's that difficult; if pay-for-survey skews results toward overvaluing the opinions of the poor and/desperate-for-money, well, then it would be the first time in history.
[+] [-] AlexandrB|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nxpnsv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OneGuy123|5 years ago|reply
Are you a shill for them? "Reputable" as mainstream media? "Reputable" as in the fake news is reputable?
Whenever someone claims "I am reputable" you should run away as fast as you can.
This "I am reputable" is purely subjective based on your own biases and incentives.
No one can be reputable in the news space and people must understand this as soon as possible: everyone lies, even natural science which is supposed to be the gold standard gets so many studies wrong.
The only way news organizations stay alive is either by: a) clickbait articles which eventualy devolves into lying or exaggeration at best. b) News orgs that are financed by private people/corporations who have their own agendas.
There is no such thing as a "reputable" news source.
Perhaps one in ten thousand jounralist is still legit, so that he is an actual investigative journalists. But 99.999 of "journalists" are actually just script readers and clickbait writers.
Do you not see where "I am reputable" leads to? Soon the "I am reputable" organization will get political power and then they will make laws based around "my reputable reporting" and this will lead to censortship.
"I am reputable" always leads to censorship down the line since it implies that "my opponent is not reputable and is lying and MUST BE SHUT DOWN IN THE NAME OF DEMOCRACY".
[+] [-] ccorda|5 years ago|reply
Raw data available here: https://github.com/the-markup/citizen-browser-georgia
[+] [-] toper-centage|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luplex|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Etheryte|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] londons_explore|5 years ago|reply
But the simple fact is that any high profile analysis of this data will simply further fuel debate about facebook overreach and harm facebook's business.
[+] [-] dddddaviddddd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] KaiserPro|5 years ago|reply
I'm interested to see what the outcome would be. I'm not sure that advertising is the worst part of FB, I strongly suspect its other users.
I am very interested in the "recommended" findings. I think that for all but a few, they reflect their own world view. However that's a hunch
[+] [-] wbobeirne|5 years ago|reply
Edit: They also only have 77.77% for national average age, though that might be explained by those under 18.
[+] [-] jeffchien|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjpnz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djmips|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaysea|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makach|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ballenf|5 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25656827 (Simulating Terminator PIN code hacking scene)
[+] [-] koreanguy|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Hnsukka|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jacinabox|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gotem|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] h0l0cube|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6gvONxR4sf7o|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|5 years ago|reply