
The Facebook poll: A Little Case in Statistical Bias - jwb119
http://weblog.markbao.com/2009/a-little-case-in-statistical-bias/
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JacobAldridge
I see this all the time on morning 'news' shows and evening 'current affairs',
most of which require voters to dial a premium phone number.

They say "87% of you agreed that poor Mrs Jones was harshly treated by the
courts."

I hear "Even 13% of the people who were really passionate about this story
ended up agreeing with the vast majority of you who realised Mrs Jones was an
angry junkie with a chip on her shoulder who deserved what she got."

</the rant of an ex-journalist>

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Silentio
This drives me crazy too. All they need to say is, "87% of respondents to our
poll blah blah blah." Not that viewers would understand the difference. Maybe
that's why they don't say anything when announcing these polls.

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peregrine
The poll was most likely done by that application that had you add it to vote.
Hereby giving the application your information and an open door for
advertisement.

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dfj225
The fact that all applications, even simple ones like this vote app, require
handing over access to your entire profile is still my biggest beef with
Facebook.

I happen to like the redesign, especially after using it for a few days. I
would like them to rethink their application permissions though.

There's really no reason that I can't use an app like this and only hand over
some minimal set of information like just my name and profile pic/icon.

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teej
> I would like them to rethink their application permissions though.

They have. Since July 08, Facebook has opened up a bit to allow applications
to run without requiring an "add" (opting in to the app getting your info).
They call it "Automatic Authentication".
([http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Automatic_Auth...](http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Automatic_Authentication))

The issue has been developer uptake. All the tutorials out there still assume
you're going to require an add. Also, app devs on Facebook have been
notoriously slow on the uptake of new features.

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dfj225
Cool, that is exactly what I had in mind.

So, I guess the real problem is just developer education.

There have been many times where I've refrained from using an app solely
because it needed access to my profile when I felt that was necessary.

Then again, maybe only geeks/the paranoid care about stuff like this.

