.@SocSciOne is incredibly exciting & important initiative to package & make available to qualified researchers secure & privacy focused data from private companies like @Facebook, so researchers can explore what is being produced, distributed, consumed on these platforms 1/8
We find that censoring the data to 100+ public shares overestimates relative share of news clicked on Facebook by nearly 2x, fake news by 4x. Fake news URL, conditional on being consumed, are engineered to be shared and shared publicly, at much higher rates than other content 3/8
Thus, a naïve reading of this data would lead researchers to a large overestimation of the size of the fake news problem on Facebook. We are able to address this by comparing this incredibly large data, with a much smaller representative sample of engagement 4/8
This research speaks to public debate over what journalists are seeing @crowdtangle which is also built on (even more stringent definition of) public shares: fake news & right-wing clickbait way overrepresented in this data versus what is actually being consumed on Facebook 5/8
We urge future data releases to focus more on smaller representative data and/or stemming URLs to avoid the need for high-threshold censoring of the data to protect privacy. More details in paper misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/resear… 6/8
Important to note that @Facebook is releasing two different peaks into what is being consumed on its platform (w/ @crowdtangle & @SocSciOne) and both give a distorted view that make Facebook look much more filled with fake news & right-wing clickbait than it really is 7/8
It would be easy for Facebook to release data securely w/ proper privacy constraints that would give more realistic view of consumption of news on Facebook. Just perplexing why they don't produce more representative data of their platform: obvious win-win for them & research 8/8
Everyone who would comply with a mask mandate is already vaccinated.
Sure, vaccinated people have a slightly elevated chance of getting a much more mild form of COVID-19 from all of these anti-vaxxers, but that is not what is not hospitalizing & killing people, that is not what is allowing this terrible disease to mutate.
If you are vaccinated & live in a high risk area: you should wear a mask indoors, you may want to avoid being indoors, especially if you are in a high risk group. I am sorry, but your neighbors suck and their death wish is making your life worse.
Thought experiment: imagine Trump loses the 2024 election and a bunch of Trump states leave the Union to join him under the Trump flag, and this time we don't stop them. We know they will beg to come back shortly: Trumpland is currently subsidized by Democratic states ...
And, Trump Family would do what they always do: rob Trumpland of any of its remaining wealth, declare bankruptcy, walk away. So, knowing we have short window to correct institutional problem before Trumpland returns, what are our key priorities?
Suggested Amendment: elect president by popular vote, house size grows every 10 years to pop/500k with multi-member districts & single transferable voting rule, 18 year terms for supreme court (then back to federal judgeship), 100 senators elected by national proportional vote.
2020 Polling Error Report by @AAPOR super unsatisfying: authors are able to detail several likely causes of polling error that did not happen, but they admit there are several possible (maybe in concert) causes of polling error that may or may not persist aapor.org/Education-Reso…
Super impressed & thankful that the authors were able to produce a document so quickly that was so thorough, clear, and brave enough to not try to force an answer or make us feel better about the future of polling. The report is true, necessary, and will lead to critical research
I have been a frequent, public, critic of @AAPOR and its dogged obsession with "probability" polling done on the phone (remember those), but this report had a lot of folks I respect, including @joshclinton as chair, @aedwardslevy SunshineHillygus @jcbjackson John Lapinski, etc.
If you pass a massive infrastructure bill the Republicans cannot really undo it because it would be super popular and tearing down infrastructure to prove a point would be insane.
If you pass universal healthcare the Republicans cannot really undo it because it would be super popular and Republicans have already learned that kicking 20 million off of healthcare is hard even when they have unified control over US.
If you pass necessary aid to people still dying & otherwise suffering the fallout from COVID-19 Republicans cannot really undo later it because straight-out murdering people the bill saved it is not something government is equipped to do, even if a Republican majority demands it.
5 months ago MAGA insurrectionists occupied the Capitol in order to murder the vice-president & block the transfer of power to duly elected Democratic administration. Now MAGA Party is publicly blocking any investigation into the violent insurrection …
(1) We really know very little about how (well planned) insurrection was orchestrated (2) We have held none of the leaders who orchestrated the insurrection accountable (3) Without accountability the leaders are very publicly planning on doing it again until they are successful.
US elites figure republic will keep winning these insurrections, but MAGA purging anyone who was pro-republic, eliminating laws & norms that helped US prevail in their last insurrection. As long as we don’t hold them accountable MAGA insurrections will keep getting more dangerous