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[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 33 points 4 weeks ago

Hey @Rooki@lemmy.world and @jordanlund@lemmy.world: When I was sending that code to parse Wikipedia's sources list for a possibly better fact-checking scanner, one of the notable things that I found out is that Wikipedia regards Newsweek as unreliable. It used to be reliable, as most media outlets are, but they say that since an ownership change a few years ago, they're not. I have to say, now that I've been paying attention, their stories definitely seem to have very little to do with factual information, and quite a lot to do with amassing clicks or communicating a particular partisan message which isn't true, or both. Case in point, this explicitly propaganda-framed article.

I don't see a community rule which is specifically against unreliable articles, as measured by any source, but how would you feel about that? In conjunction with a more robust standard for what is and isn't reliable? In my judgement, this link is clearly in violation of "Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed."

Also, why is this guy still allowed to post? It seems weird. He's so openly spamming the community with unwelcome trolling and propaganda that it seems strange that he's still being welcomed with open arms. In what way is this improving the community to have him putting up a steady flow of posts, and having every one met with universal downvotes and jeering?

It's a broader question than this one post, but this post is a good example in reference to both questions.

[-] RunningInRVA@lemmy.world 4 points 4 weeks ago
[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago

What specifically about the article do you find clickbaity or unfactual?

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 2 points 4 weeks ago

I've discussed it elsewhere in the comments. The reason why more people changed their party affiliation in 2024 than 2023 has absolutely nothing to do with them being Democrats or not, but the article has constructed this bizarre artificial lens to look at that fact through, that lets them pretend that it had something to do with them being Democrats, and imply that that means people overall are leaving the Democratic party, when that has nothing to do with the data they're looking at.

[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

sorry we are repeating this in another thread, I didn't realize I replied to the same person twice. But I do want to leave this here for context.

To me it does seem a little concerning that democrats have lost more registrations than republicans:

This year, 48,702 Republicans switched parties, with 24,046 changing to "other" and 24,656 becoming Democrats, around a 67 percent increase in Republicans leaving the party.

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[-] pooperNickel@lemm.ee 15 points 4 weeks ago

oh, fuck off.

[-] Today@lemmy.world 8 points 4 weeks ago

103% ? All of them, plus they killed 6 independents? What a stupid title.

[-] loppy@fedia.io 3 points 4 weeks ago

103% increase. The number of people leaving increased by a factor of 1+1.03 = 2.03. Which is to say, the number of people leaving more than doubled, which would have been a better title, but either way there is nothing wrong with math in the title per se.

[-] Today@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

103% sounds like a lot. 60k outof 4 million is not a lot. Title is stupid clickbait.

[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

depends on how you contextualize it. Biden only won PA by 80,555 votes in 2020. In that context 60,000 voter registration flips to republican is a lot.

[-] revelrous@sopuli.xyz 6 points 4 weeks ago

Weekly updated data provided by Pennsylvania's Department of State shows the party breakdown of registered voters in the state as of Monday: 3,958,835 Democrats, 3,646,110 Republicans, 1,085,677 unaffiliated and 346,211 with "other" affiliations.

This year, the state-released data shows that 51,937 registered Democrats changed their affiliation to "other," and 61,126 switched to Republican, for a total of 113,063 leaving the party.

On the other hand, Republicans have seen a significant but smaller number of members leave the party, with 29,038 registered Republicans changing their affiliation—13,196 to "other" and 15,842 to Democrat—in 2023. This year, 48,702 Republicans switched parties, with 24,046 changing to "other" and 24,656 becoming Democrats, around a 67 percent increase in Republicans leaving the party. Read more 2024 Election

blyat

[-] charonn0@startrek.website 3 points 4 weeks ago

In other words, it jumped from about 0.5% to 1.5%.

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 5 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

How did you get the exact right answer?

There are 3.9 million Democratic-registered voters in PA, compared to 3.6 million Republicans, and 61,126 of them switched their registration to Republican this year. That's 1.5%. It came from 0.9%, not 0.5%, but your ending answer was spot-on.

I can't for the life of me figure out where Newsweek got the 103% increase, since it was 36,341 voters switching to Republican last year, and 61,126 isn't a 103% increase over that. It is, as Newsweek notes, "nearly twice," which is incompatible with 103%, so maybe they are just making up random numbers. I don't know.

I could also, as a separate way of illustrating how totally worthless this whole article is, total up the people who switched their registration from Republican to Democratic in 2023, and in 2024, and measure how much the number went up by, since it wasn't an election year last year and so obviously the numbers are going to go up in the year where it matters. But what would be the point? I don't want to do that, because I'm not a partisan hack trying to make a disingenuous point.

Source: https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/dos/resources/voting-and-elections/voting-and-election-statistics/currentvotestats.xls

Edit: @revelrous@sopuli.xyz figured it out. I needed to include the "other" affliliations, not just R and D. I could redo the math to see if it adds up to 103% that way, but as I mentioned, the whole comparison is useless and dishonest anyway, even with the right numbers, so why bother?

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[-] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 1 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

considering the margin of victory in 2020 was 1.17%, that is pretty concerning.

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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
-88 points (8.5% liked)

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