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At the time of my post, I was unable to verify the Google Trends searches (I was using it incorrectly, and have verified it, see other comments). My main point
by daenz 5y ago
At the time of my post, I was unable to verify the Google Trends searches (I was using it incorrectly, and have verified it, see other comments). My main point about using the Trends data is that if there are so many more clearly substantive sources (videos, interviews, history), why lean mainly on Google Trends.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoGoogle Trends is actually a much better data source for this kind of thing, precisely because it's so difficult to game. The examples you give (videos, interviews, history) are trivial to use to give a biased view - just show only the videos that back your viewpoint, for example. It's easy to find a hundred videos on YouTube with "proof" the Earth is flat. The other thing that is great about Google Trends data is that is essentially a window into "things people are actually searching for when they think nobody is looking." Yes, I realize the irony in that every Google click is tracked, but you'll get much more "honest" results looking at Google Trends data vs. plain interviews. For example, the country with the highest volume of "gay porn" searches per capita is Kenya, a country that is pretty vehemently anti-gay. The reasoning behind that is open to interpretation (I suspect many people are just genuinely curious given images of gay relationships in the media are so much less acceptable there), but for a society that basically deems gay sex extremely deviant, there sure are a lot of folks interested in what it looks like.