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> Fivethirtyeight had Clinton at 88% less than a month out from election day And the way statistics work, a 90% forecast is truly a 90% forecast - they weren't
by mbesto 5y ago
> Fivethirtyeight had Clinton at 88% less than a month out from election day
And the way statistics work, a 90% forecast is truly a 90% forecast - they weren't wrong with this. It's just people think 99% chance of winning basically means "they won". But that's not how it works. So the idea that these numbers are misinformation is incorrect, it's that media is using a metric that the average person has trouble comprehending.
- double_nan 5y ago> it's that media is using a metric that the average person has trouble comprehending. Isn’t that a clear case of disinformation?
- shadowgovt 5y agoThe public being too ignorant to interpret analysis isn't disinformation.
- bavell 5y agoI wish everyone thought this way :/
- double_nan 5y agoSo it's ok to mislead people so long as you are not lying directly?
- michaelmrose 5y agoIt's ok to pass on accurate information that requires the public to put in the work to accurately understand it. It is probably impossible to have the complex dialogue sufficient to inform people both intelligent and willing to put in the work in a way that is not apt to either be misunderstood accidentally or more frequently on purpose.
- mbesto 5y agoWe're talking about metrics with objective definitions that are taught in schools around the country, not headlines like "The President is cancelling his trip to Africa because he hates black people". I don't know, seems like a huge difference to me...
- ineedasername 5y agoNo. If the media reports that the average salary is $50k/year that is not disinformation even if a lot of people will misinterpret it as meaning "most people make $50k/year" simply because they don't understand that an average is a measure of central tendency, not distribution. Something like this only rises to the level of disinformation if the media (or whoever) deliberately presents an accurate piece of data in a way that it knows will not be understood. If metrics that average people don't understand was disinformation than 90% of my job would be disseminating disinformation. It's not. Instead, a large part of my job is explaining the metrics.