Share this page!

Anil Dash Profile picture
Twitter logo
7 Dec, 7 tweets, 2 min read
LOL this is such a classic “show a % change in wildly different sized numbers” form of data manipulation that I can’t believe it’s being presented straight-facedly.
Of course, manipulating data narratives is nothing new for Florida and Texas, where climate denialism and covid denialism are official policy. It’s literally just VCs wanting elected officials to stroke their egos on social media.
To make it more explicit: NYC can literally still have multiple times as many actual tech workers moving to town as an absolute number than Miami does in a year, while having a chart that looks like this. Are the people telling this story dumb or intentionally misleading?
Example:
Like, if someone is an investor and they’re this bad with numbers (or this willing to misrepresent numbers if they can profit from doing so)… that’s bad, right?
If people cheering this manipulation of stats on don’t know that Amazon has already hired more people in NYC than the HQ2 deal required them to guarantee, doesn’t it make obvious they just want handouts for the richest companies in the world?
Anyway, another stat is that 12,000+ homes in Miami will be devastated by ocean level rise in the next 20 years; we can thus predict exactly when rich, fickle tech trend-chasers will abandon the city. Because they’re sure not gonna pay more taxes to help. ucsusa.org/resources/unde…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Anil Dash

Anil Dash Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @anildash

Anil Dash Profile picture
8 Dec
Honestly, the House hearing on crypto is relatively adult and sober, though unsurprisingly a bit superficial. It is amusing to see crypto execs explicitly talk about the degree of surveillance of users. Ah, central financial authorities that surveil customers, you say?
Ah, now we’re in the part where the crypto CEOs nakedly appeal to Republican lies about being censored, and advocate a really extreme privatization of currency itself. Welp.
Astute framing from @RepJuanVargas that a huge part of activity is just speculation, and it's not different than real estate speculation was in 2008. Been a lot of dancing around that.
Read 4 tweets
Anil Dash Profile picture
8 Dec
new yule log just dropped, gonna leave this on a loop in the background this entire War on Xmas season
THIS TICKLES ME
this guy thinks it's good when cops summarily execute people in the street, but is Real Mad about some bullshit tree
Read 4 tweets
Anil Dash Profile picture
9 Nov
This is the text of the new bipartisan bill aimed at requiring large-scale (1 million+ users, $50M+ revenues) social platforms to provide views of their streams that aren’t sorted by an opaque algorithm. It’s short, and fairly readable. documentcloud.org/documents/2110…
This piece summarizes the sponsors and the intent fairly well. (Note: it uses “algorithm” here in the vernacular sense, not the technical one, but the bill itself is a bit more considered about that.) axios.com/algorithm-bill…
I think @johnthune and his cosponsors mean well with this but it’s ill-considered in its implementation, mostly for being too obviously inspired by Twitter’s optional chronological view of the timeline. They clearly saw that option & thought “let’s require more of that!”
Read 8 tweets
Anil Dash Profile picture
8 Nov
I’m really delighted to join the board of @TheMarkup. I’ve valued the work they do right from the start, and the entire team’s approach in making smart use of data & deep investigations feels like a huge leap forward in how accountability happens. It’s vital, necessary work.
A key recent example for me was the work Alfred Ng & @tenuous did on identifying the trackers used on websites for various non-profits. It’s a privacy, ethics & even safety issue to have such data shared behind the scenes. themarkup.org/blacklight/202…
And this approach, combining smart research, clear narratives, and unique technology, really has impact. For example, look at @EFF proudly showing off how The Markup’s work justified their effort in *not* allowing trackers. These are strong incentives.
Read 5 tweets
Anil Dash Profile picture
8 Nov
tfw the article is native “I am reaching out again because we have a new opportunity
(If you’ve ever wondered how those “this year’s hottest startups” or “companies to watch in 2022” articles happen, this is how.)
What they mean by “native” is most of these sites have paid content (go look at the homepage for a “Top 8 [whatever]” article, and though there’s usually a tiny label that says it’s sponsored, it still shows up in Google News & looks like a real piece.
Read 4 tweets
Anil Dash Profile picture
5 Nov
Here’s the pattern: media amplifies the message that undermines regressive efforts, then later quietly corrects the story, but the public narrative is already cemented. Here it is with labor reports, where early, (wildly wrong) estimates are treated as fact.
Here it is with blockchain triumphalism, a recurring pattern of treating false press releases as fact, just long enough for pump & dump profiteers to make their money.
Here it is with “Facebook” ending some kinds of facial surveillance… but Meta is going to keep doing it.
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @anildash has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @anildash!

Read all threads by @anildash

:(