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Twitter May Have Predicted the Election

technologyreview.com

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Re: Twitter May Have Predicted the Election

#11

Post by EdiX »

artursapek wrote: post #5
AznHisoka wrote: post #3

actually Google Trends predicted it: https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=vote%20for%20hillary... it predicted obama as well in 2012 https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=vote%20for%20romney,...

Interesting how Hillary is the only one who was referred to by first name. "Vote for Clinton" didn't register as much as "Vote for Hillary"

My impression is that this was a choice of her campaign (differentiate from Bill Clinton? make her seem friendlier?).

Jeb Bush and Bernard Sanders also had campaigns centered around their first names.

Re: Twitter May Have Predicted the Election

#12

Post by rm999 »

Right now 100% of the comments in here are about "predicting" the election, when the word "predict" isn't even used in the article. Probably an over-eager editor who changed the title.

The article itself is about a very interesting network analysis of establishment vs non-establishment behavior. I'd like to see more discussion about the content of the article.

edit: downvoted within 1 minute for trying to spur interesting discussion past the crappy headline :(

Re: Twitter May Have Predicted the Election

#14

Post by [deleted] »

rm999 wrote: post #12

Right now 100% of the comments in here are about "predicting" the election, when the word "predict" isn't even used in the article. Probably an over-eager editor who changed the title. The article itself is about a very interesting network analysis of establishment vs non-establishment behavior. I'd like to see more discussion about the content of the article. edit: downvoted within 1 minute for trying to spur intere…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter May Have Predicted the Election

#15

Post by pyromine »

rhizome wrote: post #13
thecity2 wrote: post #2

Where's the "predictive" part? Just visualizing twitter networks isn't actually a prediction.

Sounds like a "prediction" just like the results you get from training your stock picker on historical data.

At least you can break your data in to training and testing sets for stock picking, this is just hey guys we found a correlation. 20/20 hindsight is not a prediction.

Re: Twitter May Have Predicted the Election

#16

Post by thecity2 »

rm999 wrote: post #12

Right now 100% of the comments in here are about "predicting" the election, when the word "predict" isn't even used in the article. Probably an over-eager editor who changed the title. The article itself is about a very interesting network analysis of establishment vs non-establishment behavior. I'd like to see more discussion about the content of the article. edit: downvoted within 1 minute for trying to spur intere…

“Our analysis was showing something, but our beliefs were different,” says Vishal Mishra, CEO of Right Relevance, which sells a research platform focused on influence. “We thought, how is Trump going to win? But our analysis kept showing us.”

He doesn't say "predict". But it is very clearly implied.

Re: Twitter May Have Predicted the Election

#17

Post by thecity2 »

pyromine wrote: post #15
rhizome wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a "prediction" just like the results you get from training your stock picker on historical data.

At least you can break your data in to training and testing sets for stock picking, this is just hey guys we found a correlation. 20/20 hindsight is not a prediction.

Exactly. Furthermore, is this company claiming that they can predict electoral college distribution? Because we all well know that Hillary actually won the popular vote. So in fact the popular sentiment was actually on her side.

Any analysis claiming that they could predict Trump's victory without even addressing the disparity between popular vote and electoral college is a fail even before it begins.

Re: Twitter May Have Predicted the Election

#19

Post by opaqe »

rm999 wrote: post #12

Right now 100% of the comments in here are about "predicting" the election, when the word "predict" isn't even used in the article. Probably an over-eager editor who changed the title. The article itself is about a very interesting network analysis of establishment vs non-establishment behavior. I'd like to see more discussion about the content of the article. edit: downvoted within 1 minute for trying to spur intere…

I noticed the establishment v. non-est. behavior as well. How much of this network property is really a predictive signal more than an explanation for "shock" at the results? What are the conditions for it being one or the other?
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