26 points croes 3 days ago 11 comments
neaden 1 hour ago | parent
Seems like the kind of thing someone should go to jail for. You can't just run a "social experiment" by committing fraud and lying to people, and that's assuming this isn't just an excuse someone came up with once they knew they would be caught.
empath75 49 minutes ago | parent
It isn’t necessarily a crime to lie or do a hoax, and a fake poll by itself is probably well within the lines of free speech. The fraud question comes into it for two possible cases:
1) someone might have paid them to do a real poll and they faked it, which is just straightforward fraud with a clear victim.
2) (the fun one) they might have done it to manipulate political prediction markets, which gets into securities fraud questions.
_def 53 minutes ago | parent
Normally I wouldn't say something that lightheaded but.. I think this is what psyops look like. I'm not claiming it is one. But it sure sounds like one.
Aboutplants 5 minutes ago | parent
That was the first thing that I thought of and it does make way more sense than a few people wanting to make a name for themselves as an actual Polling org. I don’t see the incentive in producing fake polling unless there are ulterior motives
lovich 51 minutes ago | parent
Always know something is bullshit when I see Gunther Eagleman show up.
Toynbeeidea 45 minutes ago | parent
"Its just a prank, bro."
zug_zug 35 minutes ago | parent
Hard to say what the takeaway or lesson is here, other than having trustworthy professionals disseminating unbiased information is a public good and losing it creates paranoia and social distrust everywhere.