Michael Pence
Dan GillmorPlease, folks, stop calling Musk's bogus exercise in online voting a "poll". What he's doing has the same relationship to legitimate survey research -- i.e. valid polling -- as motel room art has to Picasso.
Please stop validating his deceit.
Brian Dear@dangillmor 100% agree.
Russell L. Wilson@dangillmor As low as all of our expectations were for him going in, he keeps managing to slither under the ever-lowering bar. Just a fundamentally terrible person in every way.
Locksmith@Russtofferson @dangillmor And even worse, his posts attempting to be funny.
John Levine✅@dangillmor I see he's now dropped the "polls" and is inviting everyone back. Seems more honest, if also more ill-advised.
IainMac9 🇦🇺🏴🇸🇩@dangillmor and at some level he’s like Trump, trying to undermine democracy (and science)
BlueDot🇺🇦@IainMac9 @dangillmor
This! Reminds me of Putin's "referenda" in the occupied territories of Ukraine. As if to say, see? Democracy is meaningless too.
This! Reminds me of Putin's "referenda" in the occupied territories of Ukraine. As if to say, see? Democracy is meaningless too.
Christine Hall@dangillmor A Twitter poll is a heck of a way to make major decisions at a $44 billion company.
Goappstate@dangillmor May I ask, has Elon “solved” the “bot problem” therefore ensuring the polls in fact reflect a single human response per individual?
Michel Maksimova@dangillmor isn't that an insult to motel room art! 😂
@dangillmor Musk's polls are a useful tool for him, it shows in very rough estimates when enough of critics have left and enough zealots have joined that they can attract the advertising dollars of AM radio sponsors -- now that a lot of advertisers left the platform.
Mike Taylor 🦕@dangillmor Well, it's not legitimate survey research — but what do you suggest people *should* call it? After all, the word "poll" is right there Twitter user interface (and indeed in the Mastodon UI). Isn't that just the accepted term for these things?
@mike @dangillmor @IdalovesEarth I agree Mike... The problem is not the term *poll*; it's that people view internet polls as legitimate ways of assessing public opinion. The cynic in me says, why wouldn't we? We're mostly trained to believe in deeply flawed voting systems that give power and legitimacy to deeply unpopular politicians with abhorrent views and unlimited money to spend on spreading lies. It's a lot more expensive and time-consuming to establish what's true than to make up shit.
@Larissa @dangillmor @IdalovesEarth Yes indeed. Anyone teaching the concept of Sample Bias could hardly do better than to start with Internet polls!
FinnerI like how a couple months it ago it was “oh no, let wriggle my out of making this terribly overpriced purchase because too many bots”.
And now, for sure it’s all only people voting in these super secure and scientific democratic social media polls.
ProtectDemocracyEverywhere 🌊@dangillmor it’s a poll like Putin’s voting stunt in the occupied parts of Ukraine were “referendums.” And I don’t think that is a coincidence either because we are seeing pretty clearly who and what Musk admires.
@dangillmor "we wanted to understand whether the public thought it was vital for our freedom to restore the account of TFG. So we polled a group of Proud Boys members at an Ohio diner and concluded the poll when we liked the results."
@dangillmor or "let me ask my 100 million fanbois whether they think what I'm doing is right."
Ty Ross@dangillmor I agree 100%
@dangillmor And stop calling him a genius. The man is being worshiped like Trump.