HELP: Fake Polls are illegal in 3rd world countries

[mjb4]

owm should we complain to about fake polls and should there be legistation to push the end of fake polling. CASE in POINT: Bush is loved! Loved! Loved! well, why does so many want to see Dean kick his ass...and why does he run from all these people that love him....

[Skinner]

1. What do you mean "fake polling"?

Polls can be deliberatly misleading, and they often are. But polls are rarely outright fakes. Who decides what counts as fake?

This would open a can of worms, and would probably violate the First Amendment too. I think it is a very bad idea.

[mjb4]

2. if it is illegal in 3rd world countries

they must know it is not about first amendment but dictatorial propaganda! see new ahnuld fake poll at fox -- he's up 16 points

[Skinner]

3. How is the fox poll "fake"?

What makes it fake? Who decides which polls are fake and which are true? The government?

Bad idea.

[mjb4]

4. I think it is a GOOD idea -- propaganda should

not be present as fact or truth. It is what it is dictatorial propaganda....

[K-W]

5. Missing Skinner's point

how do we determine if a poll is fake. A fox news poll might very well be freeped, that doesnt make it fake. Are we going to have a governement agency monitering polls? If so who appoints that agency?

[SoCalDem]

7. The polls are not necessarily fake, but the reporting ON them IS

A poll may be taken to include mostly people of one view, and then reported on, as if it were a cross-section.. Gullible people hear it and think.."What's wrong with ME, if EVERYBODY ELSE thinks "......."?


Or when they report just the percentages without telling how MANY votes there were..

If you poll 4 people and ask what their favorite color is, and 3 happen to say BLUE, does that really mean that 75% of ALL people prefer BLUE over any other color???

[0rganism]

6. Why would we want to emulate 3rd-world countries even more?

We already have 3rd-world healthcare, 3rd-world job security, 3rd-world media ownership regulation, 3rd-world foreign policy, and 3rd-world elections.

Isn't that enough?

[Junkdrawer]

8. I would like to see polls discredited...

Polls are becoming more a tool for opinion shaping than opinion monitoring. And it is so easy to shape the questions of a poll and "adjust" the results. Zogby, for instance, routinely doubles the Republican results of any poll because they believe Republicans are twice as likely to hang up on a pollster.

I would like polls to be seen for what they are becoming: a propaganda tool.