A ragtag sample of media coverage of CBC’s “vote this way” tool:
United Press International:
Online quiz makes everyone a Liberal.
Chris Selley, writing in the National Post, says he took the test and came up Conservative, but –
That said, the Vote Compass is certainly a bit crap.
The Sun’s Brian Lilley:
In one video promotion, show host George Stroumboulopoulous tells viewers to take the test, “In about five minutes you will know who represents you the best. You might actually be surprised.”
Some participants are very surprised, mostly to find out they are Liberal.
After noting that the “director of analytics” for Vote Compass was a policy advisor for Ignatieff’s Liberal leadership campaign, and that a member of Vote Compass’s advisory board “savaged Stephen Harper in the press, claiming he was destroying the ‘integrity’ of government”, Ezra Levant observes:
It’s possible that cadre of diehard Liberals can be neutral. But there’s only one way to be sure: The formula that Vote Compass uses must be disclosed publicly.
Why wouldn’t they, really? Just to assuage the toothless proles.
QOTD goes to Lilley:
CBC has defended the Vote Compass. A spokesperson for the CBC said they had nothing to do with the methodology.
We have no clue about the methodology – we’re an arms-length news organization – but we’re positive it’s on the up-and-up.
Insert Gallic shrug here.
As I mentioned in the other thread:
I have only little doubt that the methodology of this test isn’t 100% correct.
It’s just that if you ask the right questions, the right way, place the “where the liberals, etc…” are on the score card “just so”, and believe the party platform literally for scoring purposes rather than you own lying eyes over how the parties really vote… then you can come over to any answer you want.
It’s really an exercise in intellectual masturbation more than any useful metric. It’s a party trick. Pun intended.
I could come up with an equivalent test in a day that was mathematically fair and could choose which ever party you wanted me to 90% of the time.
The scandal isn’t the test, the scandal is that a public broadcaster would place crap like that on their website.
“…the scandal is that a public broadcaster would place crap like that on their website.”
Yes, and promote it far and wide, coast to coast, at taxpayers’ expense, in the middle of one of the most pivotal election campaigns in the last half-century.
Just tried it again — voted all the left hand side; gave Cons highest and others lowest — Presto! I’m a Liberal.
Then voted all the right hand side; gave Cons highest and others lowest — Presto! I’m still a Liberal.
Bias or incompetence?
Is it true the 2011 budget included an extra 60 million $’s for the CBC?
One’s hoping it’s just to keep the mother corp quiet enough before a majority Harper Government…Then the big slash can start.
I WANT THE CBC TO BE OFF THE TAXPAYER TIT…I don’t care how they do it but they better start addressing it if they get a majority…OR I WILL STOP CONTRIBUTING TO THE CONSERVATIVE FUNDRAISERS.
Got that, PMO?
Buy a bumper sticker! Privatize the CBC! Show your support!
Ebay link below:
http://tinyurl.com/63564jh
Here’s the real scandal, CBC shilling for the liberal party under the guise of a survey. I’m sick of Liberal Media acting as agents for the liberal party without being licensed as “Political Lobbyists”
“…CBC has defended the Vote Compass. A spokesperson for the CBC said they had nothing to do with the methodology.
We have no clue about the methodology – we’re an arms-length news organization – but we’re positive it’s on the up-and-up. ”
Just like planting a question with a Liberal MP during QP so a story that was already written could be published?
Insert Phallic shrug here.
“voted all the left hand side” …
“Then voted all the right hand side”
Bias or incompetence? ”
Probably neither, I’m pretty sure if you read the questions, voting “one button” sends you 100% neutral (sometimes it makes you answer liberal don’t read the question others conservative), i.e to the middle on the scoring matrix, or close enough not to matter. Guess which party is closest to the center: according to the matrix?
Tada.
i.e. there’s (or should be) an equal dispersion of answers across the buttons. A conservative /liberal answer to a question could be any side, and should be designed that way.
The issue is what defines the middle, and how you phrase the questions.
CBC stated that over 500,000 have taken the survey. That has to be bogus in of itself as the CBC only has 7545 viewers! All employees or talking heads of the MSM (if you can call them that).
Most conservatives in this country have realized which bed the CBC lay in for decades. No surprise here. One of the reasons I got involved with Reform at the beginning was that Mulroney didn’t cut their money off. That was with back to back majorities!
ct, ditto here and haven’t watched CBC since the late 80s.
A spokesperson for the CBC said they had nothing to do with the methodology.
“We have no clue about the methodology – we’re an arms-length news organization – but we’re positive it’s on the up-and-up.” Sure, if you believe that I have ocean front property in Saskatchewan to sell you.
“(I) haven’t watched CBC since the late 80s.”
You should give it a try, Ken, just for the duration of the election campaign. Tonight, for example, The National opened – and when I say “opened”, I mean that literally, as in, before a there was *any* program identification whatsoever, before a single word had been uttered by anyone by way of introduction to indicate that this was a CBC news broadcast – with Michael Ignatieff saying –
I’m not joking. I wish I was.
I wouldn’t watch it either, not for one second, if it wasn’t for the fact that Canadian taxpayers are subsidizing these blatant Liberal shills to the tune of over *a thousand million dollars* per year.
Execrable.
The important thing to remember is it does not rate the leaders. You can have the most beautiful dream in the world but if it cannot be implemented it’s a dream.
Policy at election has been known to go off track quite quickly after the election.
Finally some truth being uttered by the CBC,”we don’t have a clue”.
I took the test, answered honesty and came out Conservative but at the beginning when it started asking demographic info and riding info I became an under 30 female, university educated in Toronto Centre. Which is opposite of what I actually am. I figured I’d skew and data that CBC was trying to mine from the questions.
The CBC doesn’t care about the methodology, so long as there is a strong Liberal bias. If there was a hint of Conservative bias, does anyone think for a minute that the “compass” would have made it onto the website? You don’t have to “understand the methodology” in order to have systematic bias. Fire. Them. All.
Oh well, that must be the end of this issue. The CBC has seen fit to grace us with a comment about this Vote Compass, explaining that there is nothing to see here and we should just drop it:
“We have no clue about the methodology – we’re an arms-length news organization – but we’re positive it’s on the up-and-up.”
Clearly all the sampling, analysis, and digging into who is behind the poll are just ignorant ramblings of lowly peons. The CBC folks are clearly much smarter that any us since they know it is on “the up-and-up” while having “no clue about the methodology”.
We are so lucky to have this Canadian icon that not only provides entertainment and news, it also provides the service of doing our thinking for us. So just vote Liberal because the Vote Compass said so.
sarc/off
That wasn’t a CBC quote, Rick, I was paraphrasing the statement above it.
I dunno…I took the ‘test’ and it said I was a conservative. Guess there is no such thing as libertarian.
Canada is a liberal country so it should come as no surprise that most who take the test come in as liberals. Right?
As for the cbc. Hopefully a Harper majority will free them from governments grip and they will be able to persue their agenda. Those that subscribe to that agenda should then step up to the plate and purchase a subscription to the cbc so they can watch,listen and read…….. Please leave the rest of us out of the equation.
The comments under this National Post article — “CBC’s Vote Compass accused of bias” — are well worth reading.
After the reaction that’s happened in the last few days it will be interesting to see if CBC will continue to promote – and report on the results of – ‘Vote Compass.’
From the UK:
“A key part of CBC’s 2011 Federal Election coverage, the vote compass is backed by a massive coast-to-coast marketing campaign. These marketing efforts in turn give CBC exclusive rights to real-time analysis by the academics responsible for the vote compass’s creation.
“It is also backed by the Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship as well as the University of Toronto Social Sciences department.”
The Compass should have a disclaimer:
“No Conservatives were consulted on the development of this website”
It was created by Liberals who consider their own political views to be mainstream and think that the Liberal characterization is default Conservative position. They belive it is so extreme that conservative supporters are somehow deceived.
Whether or not the apparent bias is due to design bias or mere incompetence, the fact that so much concern has been raised over this “Vote Compass” should cause a responsible broadcaster to reconsider whether or not they want to push it on the public during a very sensitive election campaign. Especially if said responsible broadcaster is tax-funded. And the CBC is a responsible broadcaster, right?
And an unbiased Privacy Commissioner might want to investigate the way this vehicle is being used to gather voter data, right?
It’s also rigged to show that if you are “centrist” then the Liberals are the people to vote for. The Libs have never been more further to the Left in history and are competing with the NDP for the title.
A new month, a new start, a new optimism. I woke up this morning thinking that the folks at CBC News were finally going to act as professionals, finally put their deep-seated biases to the side, finally act like true journalists.
That entire notion shows how much of an April Fool I was! 🙁
The Ceeb has a poll up regarding the per vote political party subsidy that could use some attention.
Submit Information Request to the CBC for full costing of the Compass Survey. Contact Sylvie Gadoury at 181 Queen Street, Toronto. K1Y 1E4
I am, you should do as well.
It is possible that no bias was intended, but bias is there nevertheless. Even the fact that they have had numerous claims of bias should be sufficient cause for them to remove the quiz. It is designed with outdated and misleading assumptions. It is most certainly inappropriate in an election period.
Interesting – I answered Libertarian (except in the voting area, where I dumped all but Harper each time) and ended up Conservative. Might be a US/Canadian disconnect in definitions there.
syncrodox, could you give us a link? I’m trying to locate the poll you’re talking about at cbc.ca. ‘Haven’t found it yet …
‘Found it!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2011/04/question-of-the-day-323.html
batb
My apologies, I posted just as I was running out the door and forgot the link.
Glad you found it despite my bumbling.
No hay problema, syncrodox.
Thanks for letting us know about it.
The fault with this survey is not in how the question are asked, it’s in the assumptions the CBC has made about the policy positions of the Conservative Party. Rather than going with what Conservative policies really are, they’ve gone with what they think Conservative policies are.
This is most stark when considering social issues. For example, considering both the abortion and same sex marriage issues, the far right position would be to oppose both and to make both illegal. Until they come clean with which policies they credited to the Conservatives, none of us can say for certain, but the CBC probably assumes the Conservatives would take that view since some of their MP’s and many of their members and supporters hold that view.
But that is not Conservative policy at all. The party believes in free votes in the House of Commons for all its MP’s on social issues.
That’s an entirely different policy. It gives MP’s freedom of choice and it means that the Conservative Party attracts both social conservatives, social liberals and libertarians. This couild be why many who consider themselves Conservative are labeled Liberal by the CBC in this faulty poll.
I suspect CBC had planned to announce the results of their polling at the end of the campaign, thereby influencing the vote. All the brouhaha created by this controversy has, hopefully, put that idea to rest.
Great work everyone.
This keeps getting weirder and weirder.
My original post;— I did the CBC’s voter compass survey twice. The first time I somewhat disagreed with all questions,the second time I somewhat agreed.
And the survey says (in both cases)…..You are ….Liberal…. What a surprise!!!
Geez,it almost appears that our unbiased national newsource is running a survey that will steer the undecided and/or uninformed voter to the Liberal party.
Posted by: wallyj | March 27, 2011 12:35 PM
——–
On that same day I posted a comment on CBC that was published. It was short and stressed my dismay at the survey’s shortcomings. The comment was up on Monday afternoon and had a number of thumbs up,thumbs down and three replies. Tuesday afternoon,it disappeared.
This says to me that CBC was aware of the problem and are stifling any criticism. I will,if needed,swear an affidavit that they were aware of the problem as early as Sunday afternoon.
Today,I went on the CBC website and checked my profile page.All comments that I have written since Dec 21,2009 have been deleted. I don’t know if they cleared everyone,or if they just cleared mine.This is one strange corporation.
I took the test a number of times, but tonight I just kept all my answers in the middle: “about the same” neither more nor less”, etc. IN OTHER WORDS, IF I HAD NO OPINION ON ANYTHING – IF I TOOK NO STAND ON ANY ISSUE, I WAS – SURPRISE – A LIBERAL!!
“MS_84”, from the comments under this National Post article:
“I took their poll just to see what it was asking and how it seemed to analyze the results. The problem with it (and the reason it is likely biased) is that it places the Liberals at the center of the political spectrum with all the other parties at the margins. For any Canadian who best falls under the category of politically moderate (and I think that probably encompasses a majority), the CBC poll automatically assigns them to the Liberal Party. Statistically speaking, if we assume the population follows something like a normal distribution (or even binomial or trinomial) in political leanings, you will inevitably find the largest numbers clustered around the center (where the Liberals happen to be placed).
“I think that is a bogus conclusion. Most Canadians are not political extremists, and I don’t think it is a valid conclusion to go on to say that they should therefore vote Liberal. The Conservative Party (as it currently presents itself at least) is definitely a centrist party – at least as much as the Liberals. And the others (NDP, but especially the Bloc and Green) are really more like special interest political groups. Just because a person takes a strong interest in environmentalism or is something of a patriot for Canada’s french heritage (because I don’t think people who vote for the Bloc seriously want to separate anymore), does not mean that they are necessarily on the political fringe, like the CBC model assumes.
“Quite frankly, the Canadian political landscape does not lend itself well to the traditional economic & social left/right political spectrum. It provides a bad model for predicting people’s party allegiances. When responsible social scientists come up with a sociological tool of this kind, they really need to take a step back and ask themselves whether the results they get pass a basic ‘smell test’ for soundness and accuracy. In this case, I don’t think they did that.”
TO: Fred2 at April 1, 2011 9:40 AM
The term, “social engineering” can mean a few things, eh?
The latest, most popular definition with the internet crowd is how to dupe people into scams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering
To which example provided at Wikipedia does this little CBC escapade belong?
I think they fixed the vote compass today. When I just took it instead of telling me I’m a Liberal, it now says I’m a war criminal.
EBD, Thanks. Now I see that started with no “” on it. That was your quote, not the CBC’s.
No worries, Rick, I wasn’t as clear as I could have been. Proper form dictates that blockquoted citations of printed sources shouldn’t be placed in quotes, but when one is serially citing very short passages, as I was doing, the delineation between the authorship of the cited passages and subsequent comments by the author of the post doesn’t exactly jump out. I should have indicated more clearly that I was paraphrasing the previously cited quote.