Dr. Jen Golbeck Profile picture
Nov 7, 2020 9 tweets 3 min read Read on X
My friend, I am an expert on Benford's Law (in fact, I'm in that documentary you watched about it on Netflix). If you'd like me to explain the countless ways you don't know what you're talking about here, let me know.
LET'S DO THIS! (listen up @ukipwebmaster & whoever made that stupid graphic)

Benford's law is NOT EVEN USEFUL for detecting election fraud!

Deckert, Joseph, Mikhail Myagkov, Peter C. Ordeshook. "Benford's Law and the detection of election fraud." Political Analysis 19.3 (2011)
Let them tell you!

"Benford's Law is problematical at best as a forensic tool when applied to elections…Its 'success rate' either way is essentially equivalent to a toss of a coin, thereby rendering it problematical at best as a forensic tool and wholly misleading at worst." Image
NEXT, even if we pretended Benford works here (WHICH IT DOES NOT) what are the numbers that feed those graphs you have? They're not even labeled. You can't just pick numbers willy-nilly and analyze them for Benford's adherence. It works on very specific types of numbers.
But let's say you're theoretically working with numbers that could adhere to Benford. They need to be pulled from similar samples. The vote count over time in this election is not coming from similar samples as previous years
IN CONCLUSION, you don't even know what numbers you're showing here, there's no evidence they are even Benford appropriate, you're comparing to a completely different election phenomenon, and BENFORD DOESN'T DETECT ELECTION FRAUD!
In shorter conclusion, STAY IN YOUR GODDAMNED LANE AND OUT OF MINE
p.s. If you don't know about Benford's Law, it's fascinating! Episode 4 of "Connected" on @netflix with @latifnasser is all about it and it features me and my dogs talking about it!
Adding to the thread, this paper that looks at THIS ELECTION, explains how Benford's law is correctly applied (not the way y'all are doing it w/ your first digit extracting excel spreadsheets smh), and shows why Benford does NOT show fraud in this election

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More from @jengolbeck

Nov 2, 2024
🧵Next week, you will see people using something called Benford's Law to try to prove election fraud.
⛔️These people are wrong⛔️
I am a scientist who has published on Benford's Law. Let me tell you what it is and why what they are doing is mathematically incorrect. 1/
Consider the 1st digit of a number (e.g. the 3 in 386). In lots of systems, the frequency of 1st digits follows a specific pattern. 1s are way more common than 9s. There's a formula that predicts it. For a first digit N, the frequency is log (N+1)-log(N). This is Benford's Law Image
All kinds of systems follow this. Lengths of all the rivers on earth. Atomic weights. Financial statements. Benford is so reliable it's admissible in court as evidence of fraud. If you want to know more, watch Ep 4 of Connections with @latifnasser on @netflix . I'm in it! Image
Read 19 tweets
Sep 9, 2024
Today I read the NYT article about their latest poll, and was left totally astonished by this paragraph that says Trump is polling well because "he occupies the center". I wrote about this in today's MAGAReport here's a 🧵 tinyurl.com/the-maga-repor…
He occupies the center. A near majority of voters say Mr. Trump is “not too far” to the left or right on the issues, while only around one-third say he’s “too far to the right.” Nearly half of voters, in contrast, say Ms. Harris is too far to the left; only 41 percent say she’s “not too far either way.” 2024 Election: Live Updates Updated  Sept. 8, 2024, 9:43 p.m. ET23 minutes ago      The latest Zoom for Harris? ‘Paisans for Kamala,’ featuring Robert De Niro.     Liz Cheney criticized Nikki Haley for now supporting former President Donald J. Trump, and compared JD Vance unfavorably with Mi...
First, in the MIDDLE OF THIS PAGE is a link to an article about how Trump is going to prosecute his political enemies if he is elected to punish them. The irony of that being the filling of a sandwich about him being a centrist is blowing my mind
Second, and not my main point, I'm super dubious about this "near majority" vs 41% highlighted as a big difference between how people see Trump and Harris.

But still - it's a problem if close to half of people think Trump's in the center!
Read 8 tweets
Sep 6, 2024
In today's MAGAReport, I talk about Bullshit Receptivity, an actual psychological term that measures exactly what you'd guess - how receptive people are to bullshit. It's a key factor in susceptibility to misinformation and conspiracy theory belief 🧵
tinyurl.com/the-maga-report
A classic study looks at pseudo-profound bullshit. The authors randomly generated text with the New Age Bullshit Generator and asked subjects how profound those statements were. Higher ratings = higher Bullshit Receptivity

sebpearce.com/bullshit/
cambridge.org/core/journals/…
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Political Bullshit takes the form of vague statements. For example, if you can manage, listen to Trump's answer to this very specific policy question from his speech at the Economic Club of NY yesterday
Read 8 tweets
May 31, 2024
I monitor threats of violence on far-right / MAGA platforms. Here's my report from yesterday (you can get daily reports of what goes on there in my MAGAReport newsletter )

tl;dr: they are mad, have a lot of violent language, but no plans to do anythng 🧵ter.ps/z37
These communities love the idea of retribution against their perceived enemies, and in that fantasy, it is usually carried out by the (Trump-controlled) state with public executions, sometimes also torture. Here are some examples from last night calling for hangings


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More threats of hanging here. Most of these threats are directed at the judge, though some loop in the prosecutors, Democrats, etc. I am not a lawyer, but I think a lot of these threats would constitute criminal threats against public officials 🤷‍♀️
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Read 14 tweets
Apr 12, 2024
In today's MAGAReport (link in bio), I talk about the thing that occupies a lot of my thinking. There are whiffs of resignation that Trump may not be re-elected, but the community is primed for another violent conspiracy theory to harness their simmering rage 🧵
That feeling of resignation isn't because they think Trump will legitimately lose the election. They just think the corruption is so powerful that it may be stolen again. Still, if this holds, it makes it much less likely that we see any real violence in November, but...
..this is a community who felt they were engaged in a battle between good and evil in 2020. They want to be warriors. They are full of rage. And if someone comes up with a strong replacement conspiracy theory to pick up where QAnon has dropped off, it could be very bad.
Read 4 tweets
Nov 17, 2023
Alex Jones released a new video game and I reviewed the trailer so you don't have to. 🧵
In the old skool video game-style game, YOU are AJ trying to "defeat the big tech cucks and more" Image
There is a level where you have to kill gay frogs (this is a reference to an infamous AJ rant about "turning the frogs gay") Image
I was so excited about the frogs that I forgot to mention this game is called New World Order Wars. In it, video AJ tries to defeat various "enemies". Zuckerberg is "Big Tech Lizardnerd" (the Thought Police image above), Bill clinton ("The Rapist"), George Soros (“Nazi Dragon”)…
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Read 9 tweets

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