Lotta pearl clutching in this thread, as if every poll has always been rigorous and checked against bias. At least when they run a sloppy simulation you automatically have a massive grain of salt instead of requiring every reader to sniff their methods.
Would you rather read the headline “Simulated poll implies people could love Hitler” or “Poll finds people love Hitler*poll of KKK headquarters, sample size: Kyle”?
Seems like Axios fucked up by not properly vetting their source but it’s no better or worse than them failing to catch a dishonest pollster.
I’m not both sidesing, I’m pointing out that misinformation and biased studies have existed forever. It’s the responsibility of the media to suss that out and verify it before reporting. That’s just a plain fact of the job, nobody can offload that onto the source.
regular polls are sometimes wrong too
“Sometimes wrong” is an incredibly generous way to put it. If reporters had got out ahead in vetting the bullshit vaccine-autism study before amplifying it, we wouldn’t have people dying of measles today. Asking them to do the bare minimum of checking that a human poll even happened is not asking much.
lied about everything
The source didn’t lie about anything, they used Ai mysticism to project plausible sounding answers. Anyone can do that and it’s not that subversive. The people who believe them either fundamentally don’t understand the tech or are too lazy to look closely. Don’t condone that passivity by pretending baseline media and technical literacy are impossible to achieve (especially for professional reporters).
Lotta pearl clutching in this thread, as if every poll has always been rigorous and checked against bias. At least when they run a sloppy simulation you automatically have a massive grain of salt instead of requiring every reader to sniff their methods.
Would you rather read the headline “Simulated poll implies people could love Hitler” or “Poll finds people love Hitler *poll of KKK headquarters, sample size: Kyle”?
Seems like Axios fucked up by not properly vetting their source but it’s no better or worse than them failing to catch a dishonest pollster.
You’re really both sides-ing facts???
“Sure, they completely made it up and lied about everything, but regular polls are sometimes wrong too. So it’s basically the same thing.”
I’m not both sidesing, I’m pointing out that misinformation and biased studies have existed forever. It’s the responsibility of the media to suss that out and verify it before reporting. That’s just a plain fact of the job, nobody can offload that onto the source.
“Sometimes wrong” is an incredibly generous way to put it. If reporters had got out ahead in vetting the bullshit vaccine-autism study before amplifying it, we wouldn’t have people dying of measles today. Asking them to do the bare minimum of checking that a human poll even happened is not asking much.
The source didn’t lie about anything, they used Ai mysticism to project plausible sounding answers. Anyone can do that and it’s not that subversive. The people who believe them either fundamentally don’t understand the tech or are too lazy to look closely. Don’t condone that passivity by pretending baseline media and technical literacy are impossible to achieve (especially for professional reporters).