4 ms·

He has 82 million followers. That’s a lot of people to be completely biased. Granted, it’s not half a billion for completely unbiased sample, but still, that’s

He has 82 million followers. That’s a lot of people to be completely biased. Granted, it’s not half a billion for completely unbiased sample, but still, that’s a lot.

cinntaile 5y ago
It seems fairly obvious that most people who follow him do that because they like what he has to say. Even if he had 500 million followers it still wouldn't be an unbiased sample.
k8si 5y ago
Followers != people who take the time to engage with his polls/other content
- bradchris 5y ago
  I'm on Twitter most every day; I don't follow Elon Musk (I try not to follow any big twitter accounts, rather than curate interesting smaller accounts); I didn't see the poll until two days after it was already closed; I think it's fair to say that most people who saw the poll were a) Either followers of Elon b) People the Twitter Algorithm decided were most likely to interact with it -- I.E. people who would be interested in what Elon has to say Just because Elon tweeted something doesn't mean all of Twitter saw it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
philistine 5y ago
Bias is a spectrum, and if your pool is non-random, you will always have a much higher bias than otherwise.
thebradbain 5y ago
Yeah, and so did Donald Trump before he got banned in 2020; his followership wasn't at all representative of all of Twitter (and that's even considering many people who actively disagreed with him probably followed him purely because of his position of power) If you polled the audience at a regular-season San Francisco Giants home game against the Los Angeles Dodgers as to what team they support, you'd probably get an overwhelming number of responses indicating support for the Giants. That does not mean more people support the Giants than the Dodgers in Los Angeles. They're two different populations, so you can't generalize the outcome from one to the other.

He has 82 million followers. That’s a lot of people to be completely biased. Granted, it’s not half a billion for completely unbiased sample, but still, that’s a lot.

cinntaile 5y ago

It seems fairly obvious that most people who follow him do that because they like what he has to say. Even if he had 500 million followers it still wouldn't be an unbiased sample.

k8si 5y ago

Followers != people who take the time to engage with his polls/other content

bradchris 5y ago
I'm on Twitter most every day; I don't follow Elon Musk (I try not to follow any big twitter accounts, rather than curate interesting smaller accounts); I didn't see the poll until two days after it was already closed; I think it's fair to say that most people who saw the poll were a) Either followers of Elon b) People the Twitter Algorithm decided were most likely to interact with it -- I.E. people who would be interested in what Elon has to say Just because Elon tweeted something doesn't mean all of Twitter saw it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

philistine 5y ago

Bias is a spectrum, and if your pool is non-random, you will always have a much higher bias than otherwise.

thebradbain 5y ago

Yeah, and so did Donald Trump before he got banned in 2020; his followership wasn't at all representative of all of Twitter (and that's even considering many people who actively disagreed with him probably followed him purely because of his position of power) If you polled the audience at a regular-season San Francisco Giants home game against the Los Angeles Dodgers as to what team they support, you'd probably get an overwhelming number of responses indicating support for the Giants. That does not mean more people support the Giants than the Dodgers in Los Angeles. They're two different populations, so you can't generalize the outcome from one to the other.