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When you look at these types of things, does it bother you that, e.g., when you look at the "by country" view, that there is all kind of noise in the categories
by JamesSchriver 7y ago
When you look at these types of things, does it bother you that, e.g., when you look at the "by country" view, that there is all kind of noise in the categories? For example, looking at the USA, under the "Region" class, hundreds of regions are listed that have nothing to do with the USA, let alone are relevant.
Just seeing that kind of thing makes me immediately question the accuracy and precision of the data if the creators didn't even conduct that rather basic due diligence. Which is also related to my inherent general concern regarding the data because it seems that everyone simply just accepts that data is not only accurate and precise, but that it has also not been manipulated and tampered with, even though currently there is very little way to verify the integrity of the data, let alone have it certified as accurate or even honest. What is considered a political ad? Is there any skullduggery going on where Facebook and others classify things they don't like incorrectly in order to manipulate things? etc
It's not like that is an unfounded concern and really should be a basic measure of journalistic integrity whether the data was evaluated or provenance was certified. There are some obvious and intentional distortions manipulative and abusive distortions that come to mind, ironically the most prominent one from the A D L that classified all manner of unrelated incidents as "right wing white supremacist extremism" in testimony to Congress an in general in public; including classifying two black people as white supremacists, classifying a domestic dispute as white supremacist, a murder of a cheating spouse as white supremacist, etc. all in order to pump up and manipulate data and impressions for political purposes. The A D L propaganda was discovered rather easily because their data set was rather limited and could be reviewed in mere seconds, but how do you have any confidence whatsoever in the data of this type of site, regardless of any kind of specific intention, let alone even unintentional manipulation and corruption of data?