Never trust a survey where you don’t know the question
A few years ago, in front of the federal elections here in Germany, the biggest (and ruling) party was frantically searching for something that would give them some votes and cost their voter base nothing.
They found it. It was a very stupid idea, but the targets were pedophiles, so it was not a problem, since nobody likes them, right?
The proposition: Put stop signs on websites with pedophile material.
Unfortunately for the ruling party it was not an auto-victory. Many people – including the victims of pedophiles – spoke out loud against it, for several reasons (you can try finding out how many counter-arguments you can find in one minute).
(source: Stupidedia CC-by-sa 2.0)
In the end this stupid idea was good for one thing: The official petition website for the Bundestag got new servers, since 130’000 people (record by far) signed the petition against the filters and overloaded the old servers.
But during all this a survey was made by the ruling party after the first backfire from the “people from the internet”.
It was a phone question and the survey was made by “the” institute for such things in Germany.
The result: 91% of asked people were for the stop sign filters.
Which made MOGIS (club for victims of child abuse) order a survey of their own. Same company, same method, just a different question (and more objective imho).
Result? 92% against the stop signs. Just two weeks later, in a phase where it was not widely discussed after the first head shakes, so it was not because everyone saw the truth and converted in those two weeks.
The difference was just the question asked. 91% for or 92% against, depending on the question asked.
NEVER EVER trust a survey where you don’t know the exact question. Without the question, the result is useless.
That's crazy, a small change in the way a question is asked has such crazy effects on the result
Yes, it is crazy.
Of course this was an exceptional amount, but it still shows how much influence seemingly simple things have. And how easy it is to get a "public opinion" towards one point if you really want to.
Even if it is just the difference between 46% and 52% in a close fight - it is still a different outcome.
It would have been nice to know the two questions so we can compare them and see exactly how it worked. If the trick is not translatable then the german originals. There are enough german speakers here to understand and explain.
I would find it hard to translate the nuances without a lot of time. This is the government question:
And this is MOGIS:
http://mogis.wikia.com/wiki/InfratestDimapUmfrage
As you can see, if you understand German, the MOGIS one gives 3 possibilities, including what they mean, what the result would be, while the government one gives themselve a "strong" base and the adverseries a weak, without mentioning e.g. that even with the proposed stop signs the child porn would not go away.
I see. The government used a false dichotomy to force the result they wanted.
The difference:
MOGIS points out the a filter is not perfect and only makes it more difficult to access the page. The third option is: delete the pages and sue the operator.
But here MOGIS cheats as well: Depending on where the page is hosted it might not be possible to delete the pages and sue the operator.
Yes, but to every rule there is an exeption.
This was also tested, and even back then - 9 years ago - it was possible to delete such pages even in "backwater countries" for 90% in one day and nearly 99% after a week, not even using legal threats but just alarming teh hoster (which the filters would not do btw.).
So for all practical means it was and is possible, and oftne easier, to delete than to block.
No, they bet on the simple fact that 90%+ of people did not know anything about what they were asked ;) They just heard "child porn" and shouted YES!
Not a dichotomy, not telling the important parts.
Agreed.
yup, typically they start with the answer they want and then write the question. We see this all the time with anti gun people citing bogus surveys to falsely claim gun owners want more gun control.
Do you have examples of those questions?
As someone from outside the US I don't find it strange at all that people want more gun controls. Even in Germany many gun owners and shooting clubs want that.
Like if you ask "should we close the gun show loophole" most people will say "yes" right?
The problem is that "the gun show loophole" does not exist.
That is good, because I have no idea what that this loophole should have been :D
"Slang" is bad for international communication ;)
For more on wording etc. see my latest post.
We have gun shows here and people claim that you don't need a permit to sell guns at one but that is false, they claim some loophole exists that allows such sales but no such loophole exists. It's a sideways attempt to end private sales where one legal owner may sell directly to another legal owner guns they already own. But it has to be non commercial, if you are making a profit or buying guns you intend to sell then you need a federal permit. If you make a business of selling guns, even if you sell one gun in a commercial way, then you require a permit whether you are at a gun show or anywhere else.
If they ask about private sales though they will get way different results than asking about "the gun show loophole".
You could write a poll question and if you use the word "loophole" any decent person should be in favor of closing it right? "loopholes" are bad and unfair, who likes "loopholes"? "Loopholes" make a mockery of the whole system, if you want people to not like something, just call it a loophole.
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