#why the bubble notes before wide access to polls????

[she-who-the-river-could-not-hold]

it is actually a crime against me personally that I still can’t create polls

#me @ tumblr features: LET ME INNNNNNN #jail for tumblr #why the bubble notes before wide access to polls???? #kathryn chats #tumblr

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#1yrago Global trumpism: how India's brutal leader manufactures reality with trumped-up "polls"

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an authoritarian war criminal who is part of the worldwide surge of trumpist leaders and hopefuls, including Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte; Hungary's Viktor Orbán; Russia's Vladimir Putin; South Korea's Park Geun-hye; France's Marine Le Pen; the UK's Nigel Farage, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and others -- bound together by xenophobia, a lack of transparency, violent suppression of opposition, and savvy use of the internet.

We don't yet have a name for these powers yet, in the same way that the early 1930s didn't have a name for the "Axis powers" and even today it's hard to pin down exactly what the Axis was -- a military alliance, an ideological fraternity, a marriage of convenience -- and who was and wasn't a part of the Axis.

But they are starting to cohere into a movement whose shared characteristics are increasingly visible. One element of this is "post-truth," which has been part of the ruling class's playbook for decades (think of Iran-Contra, the complacency regarding the credit bubble, and, of course, the WMD lie that led to the Iraq invasion).

But the new world of post-truth has a different character; as Masha "Autocracy: Rules for Survival" Gessen points out in this important On the Media segment, the autocratic version of post-truth doesn't really make a pretense to being truthful: when Trump says there were millions of fraudulent votes, he is really saying two things: first, for the lowest of low-information voters, he's saying "hey, there are millions of fraudulent voters"; but for everyone else who knows, on some level, that this isn't true, he is saying, "I can say whatever the fuck I want and you egghead liberal pussies can't do shit about it," which serves the dual purpose of demoralizing his opponents and making him seem more godlike to the worshipers in his cult of personality.

When Brexiteer Michael Gove said that "people in this country have had enough of experts," he was acting out this playbook, asserting his faction's right to manufacture a new reality to counter the well-known liberal bias of reality.

The Brexit project is built around this reality-manufacture enterprise. That's why when the best-respected nonpartisan experts released a dismal economic forecast for post-Brexit Britain, right wing politicians slammed them for daring to defy their manufactured world. As Karl Rove said in the early days of this political moment, "[you are] in what we call the reality-based community, [you] believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Which brings me to Modi, who presides over "the world's largest democracy." Modi recently surprised his 1.25B citizens with an announcement that all bills worth more than about $7.50 would be taken out of circulation in 50 days, and that old notes had to be exchanged by queuing up at banks and changing no more than about $150 at a time, with a weekly per-person maximum of about $350. The rubric for this "demonetisation" is to fight corruption, money laundering and terrorism (India is consistently at the bottom of the World Corruptions Perception Index).

However, the move has been controversial (to say the least) -- so widely deplored across all ranks of Indian society that it threatens Modi's reality-manufacture enterprise.

To reassert his trumpian reality, Modi used his app to "poll" the Indian public on demonetisation (like Trump, Modi uses online tools to communicate directly with his base, bypassing the press).

The demonetisation poll is a literal national joke in India, as it is so fantastically biased in its use of leading questions ("Do you think the evil of corruption and black money needs to be fought and eliminated?" is the second question on the survey) and its obvious sampling deficits -- the Modi app can only be accessed by the minority of Hindi/English speaking Indians who also own smartphones, and is most likely to be installed by Modi supporters.

The push-poll methodology is well understood. It featured in a classic -- and now revived -- episode of the UK political sitcom Yes, Minister that is tearing up the charts among Indian internet users.

But also familiar is the use of polls that disproportionately survey a trumpist's political base as a way of proving that the trumpist leader's policies are broadly supported -- this was something Trump himself did frequently in the runup to the election, and is making even more recourse to now that he is struggling to reconcile the ego-bruising reality of having to govern for the next four years as America's worst-performing minority president of all time.

The always-outstanding More or Less podcast (MP3) features the Modi poll in this week's episode as a teaching exercise for understanding the abuse of statistics and polls as a means to political ends.

But as important as it is to understand the statistical incoherence of using your followers' answers to leading questions as a proxy for the entire country's opinion, it's even more important to put this move into its wider context as a post-truth, Rovean, trumpist tactic used to create "new reality."

Reality is real. As Peter Watts points out, there is no negotiating with the climate, despite what Trump thinks: "Okay, we’ll cut our bitumen production by 15%, but then you have to increase your joules/kelvin by at least 5" is not a scientific proposition. But reality assertion can be delayed until the people who denied it have made their exit.

The world's super-rich are engaged in what can only be described as secession. As the world's real economy has been eclipsed by the shadow economy of offshore tax-avoidance, as climate has been forced out of the Overton window and the window is slammed shut behind it, it seems like the plan for the future is to fly from mountaintop to mountaintop, high above the rising sea, interbreeding a race of weak-chinned, entitled, murderous idiots who are brought into contact via Harrier jet for scheduled mating visits.

They don't need to prevent climate change or global economic collapse, they merely need to (literally) rise above it. Just as the criminals behind the 2008 collapse cashed out and walked away free and wealthy, just as CEOs can hollow out their companies, collect bonuses, and deploy their golden parachutes before the crash, so too do the trumpists and their courtiers expect to saunter away from the wreck whistling while the rest of us dig through the rubble for canned goods and drink our own urine.

In ten or twenty years, we'll know what trumpism is really called, and who it applies to. In the meantime, there's another political movement in potentia that we have no name for, the group that Rove sneered at and called "the reality-based community." If you are as worried as I am about Trump, you are fighting the same thing that the Turks who are fighting Erdoğan, the Filippinos who are fighting Duterte, the French who are fighting Le Pen, the Russians who are fighting Putin, the Syrians who took to the streets against Assad, the Occupiers, the Idle No Mores, the Arab Springers, are fighting. We don't have a name yet, and we're not entirely sure what to call the other side, either, but these are the sides, and they are forming.

https://boingboing.net/2016/12/03/trumpisms-global-playbook-h.html

[warninggraphiccontent]

26 June 2020

We're jammin'

Back in 2018 (remember 2018? simpler times), a number of us from the IfG, some of our friends from Full Fact and Nick Halliday spent 90 minutes trying to map the government data ecosystem. That is, we had lots of pinpoint cards and scribbled the names of organisations that had some sort of responsibility for data in government on them.

You can find that original effort here. It was a bit rough and ready, we never turned it into anything beautiful, but it was useful for understanding the data landscape across government (and more than supporting our hunch that one of the challenges of data in government is the multiplicity of meanings of 'data' and the proliferation of players involved).

Just over two years on, and with a National Data Strategy expected later this year, I thought it was time to revisit the map. Since we can't physically come together around some post-its, I've turned the old 'map' into a series of slides using Google Jamboard (the first time I've used it). Please do take a look - and add, copy, edit, remix, amend as you see fit (within the parameters suggested on the first slide, of course).

We know lots of people found the original helpful for navigating government data - I hope this one can be even more useful.

And if you're in a collaborative mood, I'm always looking for additions to the following open spreadsheets:

Reports related to data in UK government

A 'data' reading list

Data-related developments in the UK's coronavirus response.

Briefly:

If you can't get enough of the words 'jam' and 'data' being juxtaposed, then you must check out DataJam North East...

...and if you can't enough of public sector-related data meet-ups, then we have a fantastic Data Bites for you this Wednesday, 1 July at 6pm. Register here. Previous events here. It's an admin data special courtesy of ADR UK.

Have a good weekend

Gavin

Today's links:

Tips, tech, etc

Will Covid kill off the office?* (The Spectator)

Don’t expect a flexible work revolution (HR Magazine)

Make video conferencing tools work across government (GDS, via Oliver)

#dontgobacktonormal

Graphic content

Viral content

COVID-19 VACCINE TRACKER (Milken Institute)

How the Virus Won* (New York Times)

An expanding epidemic (Reuters)

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK (GOV.UK)

Coronavirus: How does the UK's death toll compare with other countries? (BBC News)

Revealed: data shows 10 countries risking coronavirus second wave as lockdown relaxed (The Guardian)

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count* (New York Times)

How Somalis in east London were hit by the pandemic (FT)

Understanding excess deaths: variation in the impact of COVID-19 between countries, regions and localities (Health Foundation)

Rainy days (Resolution Foundation)

Air pollution rebounds in Europe’s cities as lockdowns ease* (FT Data)

What are the symptoms of COVID-19? Only 59% of Britons know all three (YouGov)

The government's daily Coronavirus briefings (Oliver for IfG)

Viral content: consequences

Summer brings hope and fear to Britain’s beaches and seaside towns* (FT)

Corona Shock – June* (Tortoise)

Prospering in the pandemic: the top 100 companies* (FT)

Scandinavian and Asian countries are on the way to normal everyday work - economic recovery in real time (Neue Zurcher Zeitung)

The last three months of Citizens Advice data (Gemma)

UK government and politics

Labour councils in England hit harder by austerity than Tory areas (The Guardian)

Dominic Cummings could face inquiry over special advisers (The Guardian)

Freedom of information; civil service staff numbers (IfG, now updated)

Environment and energy

UK and global emissions and temperature trends (Commons Library)

PIPE DOWN: How gas companies influence EU policy and have pocketed €4 billion of taxpayers’ money (Global Witness)

AMAZON GOLD RUSH: The threatened tribe (Reuters)

Sport and leisure

Why Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool are on cusp of Premier League glory* (FT)

Pyramid scheme: This should have been the week of Glastonbury at 50 – will music festivals ever make a comeback?* (Tortoise)

Everything else

Seventy-five years after the UN’s founding, the world order is at risk of collapse* (The Economist)

The Human Genome Project transformed biology and medicine* (The Economist)

The N.Y.P.D. Spends $6 Billion a Year. Proposals to Defund It Want to Cut $1 Billion.* (New York Times)

Where Banks Don’t Lend (WBEZ)

Mapping London’s ethnic diversity (Niko Kommenda - though note this)

Aid Transparency Index 2020 (Publish What You Fund)

Thread (David McNair)

Trump vs Biden: who is leading the 2020 US election polls?* (FT)

What to consider when visualizing data for colorblind readers (Datawrapper)

Meta data

Viral content: contact details

Coronavirus recovery - six data protection steps for organisations (ICO)

The data rules for reopening pubs and restaurants... (me)

Concerns raised about pubs collecting data for coronavirus tracing (New Scientist)

Businesses face privacy minefield over contact-tracing rules, say campaigners (The Guardian)

The UK needs a track-and-trace system we can trust with our data (Institute for Global Change)

Viral content: I call app Britain (and elsewhere)

Google and Apple's diktat to governments on coronavirus contact-tracing apps is a troubling display of unaccountable power (Tom Loosemore for Business Insider)

The UK’s contact tracing app fiasco is a master class in mismanagement* (MIT Technology Review)

Tracking and tracing covid-19—what are the promises, limitations and risks? (Babbage, The Economist)

Apple 'not told' about UK's latest app plans (BBC News)

Does any country have 'a functioning track and trace app'? (Full Fact)

NHS Covid app didn’t pass the test but it still points way to the future (Evening Standard)

The public inquiry... (medConfidential)

No, the government hasn’t installed a coronavirus app on your phone (Which?)

Coronavirus: Ireland set to launch contact-trace app (BBC News)

French give cool reception to Covid-19 contact-tracing app* (FT)

Viral content: local data for local people

Whitehall not sharing Covid-19 data on local outbreaks, say councils (The Guardian)

Local data for local places can help save lives (ODI Leeds)

City-wide data in London: pandemic response & recovery (Part 1); Where we want to get to (Part 2) (Smart London)

Viral content: everything else

“Agreeing to do it in four weeks must’ve been a moment of madness”: Inside the team that built the UK’s furlough scheme (NS Tech)

Covid-19 has made me rethink how I publish, share and coordinate UK food data (UK Data Service)

This open source project is using Python, SQL and Docker to understand coronavirus health data (ZDNet)

Coronavirus: Artificial intelligence to 'rank' NHS patients to help clear post-COVID backlog (Sky News)

Covid-19: The Disaster Automation Was Waiting For (Tribune)

'We're using data during this crisis like never before' (via Sir Chris Ham, via Graham)

How coronavirus reshaped the NHS* (Wired)

Covid-19 and lack of linked datasets for care homes (BMJ)

Uber, WeWork, Airbnb – how coronavirus is bursting the tech bubble (The Conversation)

International Public Health Identity Systems Monitor (Ada Lovelace Institute)

Viral misinformation

Damian Collins MP: Social media firms must take responsibility for harmful Covid-19 disinformation (Press Gazette)

Coronavirus misinformation, and how scientists can help to fight it (Nature)

Countering Disinformation (Cardiff University)

Canaries in the Coal Mine: COVID-19 Misinformation and Black Communities (Shorenstein Center)

UK government

Digital Secretary's closing speech to the UK Tech Cluster Group (DCMS)

The UK’s digital strategy should be the wholesale elimination of administrative burden (Richard Pope)

Helping service teams make decisions about authentication and identity assurance (Technology in government)

Home Office faces court challenge over 'discriminatory' visa algorithm (Civil Service World)

Amazon UK executive to advise GDS on gov.uk (NS Tech)

We’re creating a DfE Service Manual (DfE Digital - discussion here)

If government is mostly service design, is most government service design databases and rights (Richard Pope)

Making it easier to access and use earth observation data (Defra digital)

Questions: Data Strategy (House of Lords)

Big tech

Andrew Yang is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data (The Verge)

CEO of Open Technology Fund Resigns After Closed-Source Lobbying Effort (Motherboard)

Why on Earth did Facebook Just Acquire Mapillary? (Joe Morrison)

Data justice

Data Justice Lab publishes guidebook on data literacy tools (Data Justice Lab)

If the idea of tech not being neutral is new to you, or if you think of tech as just a tool (that is equally likely to be used for good or bad), I want to share some resources & examples in this thread... (Rachel Thomas)

Wrongfully Accused by an Algorithm* (New York Times)

Everything else

Data sharing, US style (Wojtek Kopczuk, via Tom)

Data-informed/enabled vs data-driven (Amanda)

Combining Crowds and Machines: Experiments in collective intelligence design 1.0 (Nesta)

360Giving’s Datastore: a coming-of-age story for open data infrastructure (Open Data Services)

Why ‘digital’ is not separate from organisational resilience. (Cassie Robinson)

WHO DO THEY THINK WE ARE? Political Parties, Political Profiling, and The Law (Open Rights Group)

Tool (Open Rights Group)

How the BBC’s Shared Data Unit teaches journalists to find the news 'hiding in plain sight' (The Drum)

Dealing with rejection (FOIMan)

Opportunities

EVENT: Data Bites #12: Getting things done with data in government (IfG)

JOB: Head of (or Director of) Advocacy (Open Contracting Partnership)

JOB: Grade 7 Developer (MHCLG)

JOBS: Big Brother Watch

JOB: Data Engineer (The National Archives)

We’re hiring engineers! (EBM DataLab)

JOB: Ethics Research Scientist (DeepMind)

JOBS: Ethics Team, Public Policy Programme (The Alan Turing Institute)

JOB: Senior Data Scientist (Business Intelligence and Analytics) (Ordnance Survey)

INVITATION TO TENDER: Demonstrate the impact and value of tools developed within the OpenActive initiative (ODI)

CALL TO ACTION: Audit reform (Luminate)

And finally...

#dataviz

Body language... (Wired/Reuben Binns)

While listening to council meetings in Montreal, local mayor Sue Montgomery decided to knit in red when men spoke and in green for women... (#WOMENSART, via David)

19 Data Graphs All About Disney That Are Beyond Fascinating (Ranker, via Heather)

Coronavirus in Florida (Dare Obasanjo)

Watch the impact of the internet in 3 mins (V1 Analytics, via David)

Everything else

Cryptography... (Josh Glendinning)

Stickers (Andrew Newman)

A Woman On TikTok Sang A Song Calling Out People For Using Racist Statistics, And It's Gone Super Viral (BuzzFeed)