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zeynep's profile
zeynep tufekci
zeynep tufekci
zeynep tufekci
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zeynep tufekciVerified account

@zeynep

Complex systems, wicked problems. Society, technology, science and more. @UNC professor. @NYTimes columnist. My newsletter is @insight: http://www.theinsight.org 

floating in a most peculiar way
theinsight.org
Joined August 2009

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    1. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 1 Nov 2020

      Before anyone jumps on this, this is not a polemic against FiveThirtyEight's or anyone else's modeling choices. As I say in the piece, I was hopeful early on modeling would cut down on misleading horse-race coverage. I even wrote a piece on that! But that's not what's happened.

      4 replies 12 retweets 183 likes
      Show this thread
    2. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 1 Nov 2020

      For weather models we have detailed, fine-grained grasp of the underlying dynamics, a mountain of data, and chances to test our predictions every day. Presidential elections? Numbers fly around every four years, then lots of debate and no conclusion. Because it *cannot* conclude.pic.twitter.com/jcgtT60WTS

      5 replies 26 retweets 205 likes
      Show this thread
    3. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 1 Nov 2020

      Electoral forecast presentation has gotten better since 2016 but the public understanding is still not there. That probability number is not communicating this fact: as things stand, they do not, and cannot, rule out either party winning. That's the key thing people need to know.

      4 replies 35 retweets 209 likes
      Show this thread
    4. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 1 Nov 2020

      zeynep tufekci Retweeted Frank

      Never fails. Yeah, you got me. I don't understand probabilities.https://twitter.com/sfspaulding/status/1322979579204636677 …

      zeynep tufekci added,

      Frank @sfspaulding
      @zeynep This article should've been titled "I don't Understand Probabilities and Here's Why You Shouldn't Either" https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/opinion/election-forecasts-modeling-flaws.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage …
      Show this thread
      6 replies 6 retweets 176 likes
      Show this thread
    5. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 1 Nov 2020

      As addendum, for @insight, I wrote about why I changed my mind on this, and why I was wrong in 2012 when I defended modeling when Nate Silver was being trashed by pundits. The pundits were wrong for sure. But things did not turn out the way I had hoped.https://zeynep.substack.com/p/stop-refreshing-that-forecast …

      4 replies 29 retweets 163 likes
      Show this thread
    6. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 1 Nov 2020

      Example from today: Stories about polls and predictions do great among the "most read" pages. I get it. A lot is at stake. But there is just no way for forecasts to deliver what we seek, and as 2016 showed, it can even do harm if we rely on them and assume "likely" means certain.pic.twitter.com/mfhgyLATPH

      4 replies 12 retweets 123 likes
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    7. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 1 Nov 2020

      The number of comments like this—often from people who understand models and probability—really make my case. If we shouldn't be surprised with *either* outcome, that just reinforces my point. And here's why people "treat probabilities as forecasts"! https://twitter.com/liammannix/status/1323025081363099648 …pic.twitter.com/VcqWTd7dWR

      4 replies 22 retweets 167 likes
      Show this thread
    8. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 2 Nov 2020

      People keep asking if I think the forecasts are right or wrong. But you cannot ask that question of them. They can't be right or wrong. They weren't wrong in 2016. They won't be wrong now. That's their nature. But focus on prediction *can* affect the outcome. That's the danger.

      7 replies 48 retweets 281 likes
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    9. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 2 Nov 2020

      People in my inbox with that are favorable or not to Biden. I never said that the models are wrong.🙄 It's that they CANNOT be right OR wrong. The model probabilities you are seeing are NOT making that kind of prediction, and, crucially, the unknown unknowns are not factored in.

      11 replies 11 retweets 167 likes
      Show this thread
    10. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 3 Nov 2020

      zeynep tufekci Retweeted Jessica Hullman

      If you're looking for a distraction: Excellent academic article from @StatModeling @JessicaHullman @CBWlezien, @gelliottmorris & @JessicaHullman on communicating about forecasts—what they are, what they aren't. Again: the forecasts aren't wrong! Or right!https://twitter.com/JessicaHullman/status/1322981825040523271 …

      zeynep tufekci added,

      Jessica Hullman @JessicaHullman
      Echoes lots of points made in our article http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/jdm200907b.pdf … I wonder though what people would be doing if professionals didn't do forecasting? Overanalyzing polls? Anxiously querying friends? https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1322954214641979392 …
      3 replies 14 retweets 116 likes
      Show this thread
      zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 3 Nov 2020

      zeynep tufekci Retweeted Sam Stein

      Without making claims about any other state or the outcome. (I don't know!). Polling has clearly missed Florida, at least. Polling in a year like this included extra uncertainty. And it's also plausible that forecasts impacted/energized voters differently.https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1323786156551581697 …

      zeynep tufekci added,

      Sam SteinVerified account @samstein
      And now we wait to see if the polling misses in Florida were unique to that state.
      5:13 PM - 3 Nov 2020
      • 10 Retweets
      • 96 Likes
      • Gabriel Sidloi 🗽Suzun Mark E. Haase Discover Bassaces Chris M Michael Nielsen Mammals4Life Mona van der Smitte #stayathome 😷 💉 #staysafe
      3 replies 10 retweets 96 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 3 Nov 2020

          This is how fragile those forecasts were. One state has a polling error, and the forecast now says Trump has one-in-three chance of winning. If errors are broadly correlated—not just Miami Cubans—the odds go up more. Big numbers don't imply big certainty. https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2020-election-results-coverage/ …pic.twitter.com/Hu1nCwRBEi

          9 replies 34 retweets 209 likes
          Show this thread
        3. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 3 Nov 2020

          zeynep tufekci Retweeted Corbin Supak

          Nothing. Before the election, organize, donate, vote. The forecasts are fragile for so many reasons; plus this year has pandemic and now we have, likely, court battles.https://twitter.com/CorbinSupak/status/1323811695760912385 …

          zeynep tufekci added,

          Corbin Supak @CorbinSupak
          Replying to @zeynep
          but what are you comparing this sort of forecasting to? what would perform better?
          3 replies 6 retweets 97 likes
          Show this thread
        4. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 3 Nov 2020

          zeynep tufekci Retweeted Nate Cohn

          More model uncertainty! NYT needle (another model!) may be overcorrecting for Trump because he did better than expected in FL: model assumes same in NC + GA—but if FL is only because of Miami Cubans, that won't be the case. Wait for the counts. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1323811540018077696 …

          zeynep tufekci added,

          Nate CohnVerified account @Nate_Cohn
          There are a few things I pause at right now, though. One is that all three states are in the same model. We control for state and voting method. Does the flood of results in Florida bias us a bit in NC/GA, especially in Latino areas? I think that's at least possible in GA burbs
          Show this thread
          4 replies 41 retweets 281 likes
          Show this thread
        5. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 3 Nov 2020

          zeynep tufekci Retweeted Nate Silver

          Correcting my own garbled tweet! The 80% chance of Trump winning both is model overshoot, say Nates Cohn and Silver. Errors are sometimes correlated & sometimes not. My error: it doesn't pertain to the presidential chances (which NYT says would be equal).https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1323813664164585474 …

          zeynep tufekci added,

          Nate SilverVerified account @NateSilver538
          I love the Needle, etc. but analyzing anything based on election night returns is tricky just because we've never had this huge Election Day vs. early split along partisan lines before. Increases uncertainty, and means you should revert a bit back to 50/50.
          4 replies 13 retweets 107 likes
          Show this thread
        6. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 3 Nov 2020

          To people asking: I can't predict this. I don't know how anyone can. My prediction is that we will not have a for certain answer tonight (many key states will be counting into tomorrow and then there may well be court cases).

          5 replies 19 retweets 156 likes
          Show this thread
        7. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 4 Nov 2020

          Yep. The polls were systematically wrong *again*. Also, the forecasts—which led to a sense of certainty of a Biden win, since their fragility to even tiny shift is not understood well—also likely affected the outcome: more R turnout, more ticket-splitting. https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1323976110510657539 …pic.twitter.com/0rXDov30nH

          13 replies 99 retweets 374 likes
          Show this thread
        8. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 4 Nov 2020

          "Ticket-splitting" might have come not just from Biden at top voters: I know of people who could not vote for Trump, but did not want Democratic trifecta and voted for & worked hard for R senators. Also Maine: some Collins voters may have thought she'd in a Dem Senate/Prez setup.

          8 replies 11 retweets 103 likes
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        9. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 4 Nov 2020

          Look, if I were betting, I'd bet Biden would win, probably comfortably. He might still win, but narrowly. But I was *uncertain*. I don't think we can model rare events well. We can't poll well anymore, let alone during a pandemic. But uncertainty isn't what forecasts communicate.

          11 replies 23 retweets 300 likes
          Show this thread
        10. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 4 Nov 2020

          zeynep tufekci Retweeted Jason Spicer

          Yes. I know electoral forecasts are one thing among many things, but it's part of a broader pattern where we focus too much on the wrong things. We just need to do better acknowledging when we honestly don't know, and when predicting is besides the point.https://twitter.com/spicerjason/status/1324036088177004544 …

          zeynep tufekci added,

          Jason Spicer @spicerjason
          As @zeynep notes in @nytimes, this @The_JOP study's experiments show election forecasts confuse voters, reduce turnout, + change voting behavior. Simply put: publishing forecasts can change results, a variation of the observer effect. Worth pondering. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/708682 …
          5 replies 23 retweets 163 likes
          Show this thread
        11. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 4 Nov 2020

          Updated my pre-election op-ed on the case for ignoring forecasts. I know, I know. But there's the future. We can't poll with enough certainty and precision; we can't do good models of events that happen only once every four years; it distorts the process https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/opinion/election-forecasts-modeling-flaws.html …pic.twitter.com/ylgVjF1UYW

          3 replies 26 retweets 141 likes
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        12. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 4 Nov 2020

          Now people are telling me that the problem isn't the model, it's that polls are off (again). Well, yeah. I wrote that in the piece. Why then are we so focused on forecasts that don't have reliable data and whose models can only be evaluated once every four years—i.e not really?

          22 replies 13 retweets 253 likes
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        13. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 4 Nov 2020

          So it’s now: okay the polls were off but we will weight the polls better next time. Next time!!! The undercount weren’t “shy” or necessarily suffering from social desirability. Some of them think of the pollsters as the cultural enemy. Good luck modeling that void with weights.🙄

          18 replies 27 retweets 327 likes
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        14. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 4 Nov 2020

          zeynep tufekci Retweeted Sadie Gurman

          The problems outlined here, especially non-random low trust of pollsters, are not fixable by demographic weights. Or any method I can think of—besides already knowing the answer. Not amount of talent or effort can model this. Sometimes one can guess right. Sometimes not.https://twitter.com/sgurman/status/1324150511323500546 …

          zeynep tufekci added,

          Sadie GurmanVerified account @sgurman
          Some believe a distrust of institutions is more pervasive than anticipated across many voter groups, and that it leads conservative voters to avoid participating in polls in disproportionate numbers. The story everyone wants to read by ⁦@aaronzitner⁩ https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-went-wrong-with-the-polls-this-year-11604536409 …
          14 replies 20 retweets 141 likes
          Show this thread
        15. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 5 Nov 2020

          zeynep tufekci Retweeted Nate Silver

          Nice denominator except that you barely need polls to call about 40 of those states. Of the remaining 10, the polls are off by large numbers systematically in practically all of them. (Some got the coin toss right! Very reassuring!)https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1324379322740867073 …

          zeynep tufekci added,

          Nate SilverVerified account @NateSilver538
          And a lot of it is because of the blue shift in late-counted ballots. If we go to bed at 1am on Wednesday and polls have called 48/50 states correctly and Biden's won the popular vote by 5.3 points or something, I don't think there's a "polls blew it again!" narrative.
          Show this thread
          10 replies 27 retweets 316 likes
          Show this thread
        16. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 9 Nov 2020

          zeynep tufekci Retweeted Kevin Robillard  🇺🇸

          Empirical proof for a possibility I had mentioned in my articles. The increasing certainty people felt over Biden's presidency might well have been one of the factors that cost Democrats the Senate.https://twitter.com/Robillard/status/1325823456680808450 …

          zeynep tufekci added,

          Kevin Robillard  🇺🇸Verified account @Robillard
          A key point: Over the final month, GOP internal polling showed voters in red states started to believe Biden was likely to win the presidency. As they did, their willingness to vote for Democratic Senate candidates down-ballot plummeted. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-democrats-senate-dreams-crumbled_n_5fa8914fc5b623bfac5164a9?d6f … pic.twitter.com/TR1Pq90S2M
          Show this thread
          8 replies 66 retweets 188 likes
          Show this thread
        17. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 10 Nov 2020

          Cunningham just conceded the NC Senate. Look, the things wrong with our polls are not fixable by any known method. Pollsters may guess the post-hoc weights right here and there, but the uncertainty is giant and structural. What then is another question. First, let’s face reality.pic.twitter.com/FyOnafGMbL

          8 replies 18 retweets 113 likes
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        18. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 10 Nov 2020

          Collins won ME by almost 10%. The most damning part of these misses is they’re in the same systematic direction as the 2016 misses—so you know the pollsters tried to correct for it. They still missed big. We can’t model and weight dark matter electorate with these response rates.pic.twitter.com/9F93mdYvDY

          40 replies 112 retweets 787 likes
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        19. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 11 Nov 2020

          I like all the "why were the polls were so systematically wrong *again*" stories coming out, but here's the part that keeps getting skipped. The problems people are identifying are all plausible AND not fixable by any known method like weighting. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/upshot/polls-what-went-wrong.html …pic.twitter.com/CgA65TFg1V

          3 replies 15 retweets 69 likes
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        20. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 11 Nov 2020

          I'm just going to put an excerpt here from my NYT piece on why polls and forecasts were even less trustworthy in 2020 I published *before* the election. I'm not making post-hoc claims here. (Current text updated a bit now to reflect that's what happened) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/opinion/election-forecasts-modeling-flaws.html …pic.twitter.com/txR41T6G7I

          4 replies 7 retweets 59 likes
          Show this thread
        21. zeynep tufekci‏Verified account @zeynep 11 Nov 2020

          zeynep tufekci Retweeted nathanjurgenson

          I think we have a lot of this going on. Also it’s hard for people who think of themselves as quants to admit they are now more in pundit category—feeding the horserace but without a superior empirical basis. The polls aren’t fixable by any known method. Let’s talk about that.https://twitter.com/nathanjurgenson/status/1326564758795870209 …

          zeynep tufekci added,

          nathanjurgenson @nathanjurgenson
          yup. pundits want to overstate bidens win to make their pre-election predictions and tenor seem less wrong https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1326549009884827648 …
          13 replies 8 retweets 80 likes
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        22. End of conversation

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