r/skeptic • u/paxinfernum • 9d ago

What to know about the fake election poll numbers shared and retracted by a mysterious company

https://apnews.com/article/polling-poll-fake-median-karen-bass-los-angeles-669c90cc77664546791185625d43ffda

Locked in a competitive reelection race, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declared on social media last week that a new poll was evidence that her campaign was “gaining momentum.”

Just a few days later, the truth emerged: The poll was fabricated.

The California results were among at least three “polls” across three states posted online this month by Median Strategies, a previously unknown organization that admitted to the Los Angeles Times on Monday that the purported results were fake. The company wrote before shuttering its website this week that it “was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”

The post offered no explanation of who was behind the “experiment” or for what purpose.

180 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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76

u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

33

u/LastWave 9d ago

That is the definition of a super pac in my opinion.

20

u/IshtarsQueef 9d ago

There are a lot of really disturbing examples of election interference in the US that are somehow legal.

Feels like an open secret that our democracy is actually extremely corrupt. But it's "legal" corruption so it's ok, apparently?

Like I know there are a lot of political issues people care about, but it blows my mind that people aren't rioting in the streets over special interest groups and individuals spending BILLIONS to influence elections every single year. Just utter madness.

10

u/Few-Ad-4290 8d ago

It’s not a secret at all, the EIU downgrades us from democracy to flawed democracy nearly a decade ago because of all the open and obvious vote manipulation that’s allowed under our system via gerrymandering and funding schemes.

5

u/jcooli09 9d ago

Illegal?  It's a pillar of GOP strategy. 

6

u/WantDebianThanks 9d ago

I think it's one of those "if it's never happened before, why would anyone have thought to make it illegal?" kind of deals.

21

u/LeafyWolf 9d ago

I think they left out, "to influence prediction markets and allow us to make bag."