Farrah Bostic

@farrahbostic.bsky.social

Posts

Strategist helping brands make decisions that help them grow. Prefer to ground these decisions in what people think, feel and do, so I … talk to them, a lot. So much so I make 2 podcasts about people, how they get converted to data, and what happens then.

Posts Replies Media

New episode of Cross Tabs: talking about using polling to develop deep understanding of underrepresented communities, and to investigate essential concepts about patriotic identities and civic participation, with Professor Ray Block of Penn: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

‎Cross Tabs: 12: Allegiance & Belonging with Dr. Ray Block, Jr. on Apple Podcastspodcasts.apple.com ‎Show Cross Tabs, Ep 12: Allegiance & Belonging with Dr. Ray Block, Jr. - Jul 10, 2024

When I take on a new client I read the most recent research to see what they know/think they know, what’s weird or probably wrong, what the research doesn’t address at all. then I put that together with a research recommendation. So I did that w post-Debate polls. open.substack.com/pub/crosstab...

What the polls say, and what they don'topen.substack.com I've read the cross tabs for every post-debate poll that offers them. Here's what I know.

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Farrah Bostic

Whether Biden drops out or continues, I expect a primary target of foreign info operations this year to be the legitimacy of the Democratic candidate and the legimitacy of the courts in relation to the the GOP candidate. Expect them to target audiences on both sides and exploit organic criticism.

Since the discourse has returned to whether Biden should step aside, & the party has a contested convention in 7 weeks, I offer a suggestion. In place of polls & punditry, try scenario planning & wargaming. They don’t need predictions, they need a plan. open.substack.com/pub/crosstab...

open.substack.com

Latest Cross Tabs is up — it’s a continuation of my conversation with Rich Ratcliff of OpinionRoute about how to leverage innovation & expertise to combat inauthentic survey responses — relevant to anyone commissioning, conducting or just relying on survey data! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

‎Cross Tabs: 11: Convenience Leads to Fraud with Rich Ratcliff, Part 2 (Solutions!) on Apple Podcastspodcasts.apple.com ‎Show Cross Tabs, Ep 11: Convenience Leads to Fraud with Rich Ratcliff, Part 2 (Solutions!) - Jun 26, 2024

This week’s episode of Cross Tabs is about how online opt-in sample attracted fraudsters pretending to be members of your core audience. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c... This is part 1 - next week: solutions! @awmercer.bsky.social you said you wanted to know when this came out!

‎Cross Tabs: 10: Convenience Leads to Fraud, with Rich Ratcliff of OpinionRoute on Apple Podcastspodcasts.apple.com ‎Show Cross Tabs, Ep 10: Convenience Leads to Fraud, with Rich Ratcliff of OpinionRoute - Jun 19, 2024

Okay, I’m confused. FEC website says: Federal law prohibits contributions, donations, expenditures & disbursements solicited, directed, received or made directly or indirectly by or from foreign nationals in connection with any federal, state or local election apple.news/ABIgDzCiPQtm...

Donald Trump fundraiser in London ‘already has $2m’ day before eventapple.news Reception and dinner with Donald Trump Jr will be hosted by actor Holly Valance and attended by Nigel Farage

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and concerning in terms of what it means for 2024

this is a real shame www.platformer.news/stanford-int...

The Stanford Internet Observatory is being dismantledwww.platformer.news House Republicans attacked the lab’s reports on misinformation and election integrity — and now Stanford is pulling the plug

My Cross Tabs conversation with @awmercer.bsky.social about mixed methods, bogus respondents and survey design is now available! It’s the first of 3 episodes taking a hard look at the challenges of online survey research. Thanks Andrew! (And pardon my pun) podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

‎Cross Tabs: 9: This is How We Pew It with Andrew Mercer on Apple Podcastspodcasts.apple.com ‎Show Cross Tabs, Ep 9: This is How We Pew It with Andrew Mercer - Jun 11, 2024

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Please. Go on. Tell me again how there's no difference between the two of 'em.

One candidate passed the biggest environmental bill in history. The other is ready to sink the planet in exchange for a billion in oil money. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaignwww.washingtonpost.com Donald Trump has pledged to scrap President Biden’s policies on electric vehicles and wind energy, and other initiatives opposed by the fossil fuel industry.

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Hell of an ad from the European Parliament for the upcoming elections: youtu.be/E3mrIYSEbwI?...

Use your vote. Or others will decide for you. European elections, 6-9 June 2024youtu.be Democracy is a precious gift, passed on to us from previous generations.Use your vote at the European elections from 6 to 9 June 2024.Sign up to get voting r...

A research trope I would like to die is “if you ask people where they get their news they say [newspapers/CNN] — the ratings say they’re lying.” I’ve stopped asking “news” only - it’s “where do you get information about… [topic]?” You know what people say? Search. Social. Talking to friends.

When you’re as behind in the polls as the Tories are I suppose there’s always the “win local elections by doing fascism” strategy to fall back on. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024...

Home Office to detain asylum seekers across UK in shock Rwanda operationwww.theguardian.com Exclusive: Operation comes weeks earlier than expected and is thought to have been timed to coincide with local elections

Seems completely normal and cool. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Tory staff running network of anti-Ulez Facebook groups riddled with racism and abusewww.theguardian.com Investigation finds groups hosting Islamophobic attacks on London mayor Sadiq Khan, white supremacist slogans and antisemitic conspiracy theories

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I appreciate the people who are doing empirical research that demonstrates the problems with this sort of thing. What I’d really love to see is a #philsci take on the question. What is the epistemic value of an LLM simulated research subject? Has anyone written anything on this?

NEW PREPRINT by CREST Sociology's @scoavoux.bsky.social and @ppraeg.bsky.social: "Machine Bias. Generative Large Language Models Have a Worldview of Their Own" LINK: doi.org/10.31235/osf...

This conversation about AI between @chrislhayes.bsky.social & @meredithmeredith.bsky.social was great. open.spotify.com/episode/2yZd...

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Farrah Bostic

The issue as I see it is that you could never know if a study done using simulated research subjects generalizes to human subjects without doing the human study to compare. At which point why bother doing the AI study in the first place?

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Actually an enlightening thread.

So, look. When I was back at Microsoft, an issue that came up was the device owner's need for privacy. There might be things on your device you don't want people to see! The semi-official code for these was "family photos".

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Farrah Bostic

Reply to

Django Wexler

One thing AI has in common with crypto is that boosters are well aware the primary use cases are both illegal and immoral; they don't care but can't say so in public.

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"There's just no evidence for the common but largely mythical idea that somehow young people are more vulnerable to media effects than are adults" www.platformer.news/anxious-gene... @zoeschiffer.bsky.social

Inside the debate over The Anxious Generationwww.platformer.news Jonathan Haidt wrote a best-selling book about teens and social media. Not everyone buys its thesis

I interviewed Paul Westcott of L2 Data for my show Cross Tabs about what voter files are, how they are appended with other kinds of information, and how campaigns & public pollsters use them. They’re probaby the biggest provider of voter data, including to pollsters like @upshot.nytimes.com.

‎Cross Tabs: 5: The Difference Between Internal Polls and Public Polls with Benenson Strategy Group on Apple Podcastspodcasts.apple.com ‎Show Cross Tabs, Ep 5: The Difference Between Internal Polls and Public Polls with Benenson Strategy Group - Mar 28, 2024

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Read this headline and tell me the Times doesn't want Trump to win "Biden waves his first-term resume at a skeptical America" You could have just said "Biden makes his case for reelection"

Confronting low approval ratings and a neck-and-neck race against Donald Trump, President Biden is now racing to tell voters about his accomplishments, in ways big and small.

Biden Waves His First-Term Résumé at a Skeptical Americawww.nytimes.com With increasing urgency, the president is trying to impress upon voters that he has accomplished quite a bit — even if they don’t see it in their lives yet.

It hasn’t been especially controversial in a long while but delegate selection is a part of the process of presidential candidate selection that we should all pay attention to.

The Missouri Republican congressional district conventions are TODAY 7 days until Democratic caucuses in Alaska & Wyoming 13 days until the Wyoming Republican state convention www.frontloadinghq.com/p/the-2024.h...

The 2024 Presidential Primary Calendarwww.frontloadinghq.com Latest update: 3/7/24: Alaska Democratic party-run primary date adjusted . 1/21/21: [ A few notes on the 2024 presidential primary calend...

My dog has an irritated foot so we’re putting an anti fungal/antibiotic ointment in between his toes. But then I have to wrap his foot so he won’t lick it off. So then he licks my foot. And that seems like a fair settlement.

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The great thing about ad-supported media in 2024 is that you exist at the whim of larger giants that direct traffic around the internet, and if you ever actually manage to earn money from it, they can always decide they would like to have that money instead of you. retrododo.com/google-is-ki...

Google Is Killing Retro Dodo & Other Independent Sitesretrododo.com It honestly breaks my heart to write this article, but I want to be as transparent as possible with our readers because you are the ones that have quite literally…View Post

I asked midjourney to visualize this and here’s what it gave me. Close enough.

New: ChatGPT continues to pollute spaces where people go to acquire knowledge. ChatGPT generated books are being indexed in Google Books, and could impact Google Ngram viewer, an important tool used by researchers to track language use throughout history www.404media.co/google-books...

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Remember, kids: all claims about the modern Electoral College that try to map it onto "founders' intent" are nonsense. This one is particularly easily demonstrable nonsense since winner-take-all didn't become the norm until the 1820s. www.nytimes.com/2024/04/03/u...

Crime — and making the process of making ads cheaper.

Twice a week now a Silicon Valley company issued a press release like, “We have invented a new technology. It’s only use is for crime. Accordingly, we are all now billionaires.”

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