Inappropriate Uses of Google Trends
medium.com
medium.com
I could imagine a good portion of the questions could be originating from students. If a large political or economic event happens, it's not unlikely for classrooms teachers to task their students to understand what's happening. Search is the obvious first step for that.
Even more broadly, and in line with the article, extrapolating from a single coarse data point is a Bad Idea™.
How can wanting to learn more possibly be demonized? Would we rather have a situation where a big influential vote affecting the future of an entire nation comes up and no one does any research about it?
Young students are a group who may likely search for this information after the vote when it had a major impact on their country as before the vote it wasn't necessarily important for them to have detailed knowledge about it.
I'd hope we would never penalize someone for trying to get background information, no matter how "simple", before making an important decision, regardless of whether they're a student or an adult.
To an even broader point, imposter syndrome is hard enough when you just feel like you're behind on your fundamentals, let alone when you are actually behind on your fundamentals. Improving yourself should never be stigmatized.
Concluding that people probably know what the EU is while searching very specifically using the phrase "What is the EU" is no more accurate or truthful than concluding that they don't know what the EU is.
The author says at one point, "perhaps we can more likely conclude". Perhaps we can. But perhaps we shouldn't make any conclusions and just stick to the thesis that the press should know better when reporting facts?
The less clueless-sounding queries have spikes on Google Trends that appear very correlated with the "who is"/"what is" spikes, for what it's worth.
I didn't know how exit would happen via "Article 50", so I couldn't search for that term.
This election cycle has demonstrated that Google is acting politically, not a neutral repository with great search tools.
Funny enough, that's exactly what happens in the US though...
The key there is that the research is happening after the vote. They story being told about searches is wrong, but if it was true it would be notable.
What I observe right now after the Brexit vote is the absolute conviction that brexit happened because the fact that it is xenophobic was just not explained clearly enough and the "stupid" brexiter just did not get it.
Very often I google things that I know quite a bit about. Sometimes to see if there is any news about it, or just to get to the wikipedia page, and brush up on a few facts.
Few of the searches I did today[0]:
- russian letters - because I needed to copy-paste a glyph
- ramen - because I wanted to double-check this word for one of my today's HN comments
- polyvalent - because "wtf does that word in today's HN link mean?"
- sabaton prague - to get the name of a song I wanted to listen to
- list polecający - to double-check that's a right name in Polish for "recommendation letter"
- shield logo - to quickly find an image URL I could post to office chat so that the person who stole my mug can know which mug I'm talking about
etc.
I could call only one of these (the "polyvalent") a case of not knowing something. Rest were mostly "utility searches".
[0] - I'd post more, but for the typical weird Googly reason, they completely fucked up the search history interface - it's now mixed with sites visited with Chrome, of which I have significantly more than distinct Google queries. And there is no way to filter the list. Why Google keeps making interfaces dumber and less usable is beyond me, but I'm started to get sick of it.
1: There's a fine line between using language that some percentage of people won't necessarily know the correct definition of but is precise to your meaning, and using less precise terminology that requires more words and sentences to arrive at what may be equivalent. In my experience, people generally have a mostly correct idea of the meaning of most of the less common words in English, but through remembering prior uses in context, not through necessarily remembering the definition. I like to skirt this line (at least, where it is for me, as it's different for different people), and rely on readers that care to look up the definition of a word that they aren't sure if it implies something specific (as I try to).
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemer...
For me it shows major headings of each search I have done, and smaller subheadings of the search results I clicked on. Most of those from firefox, and none of my chrome history is mixed in.
But yeah, Googling stuff can mean a lot of things, and its ridiculous to assume it purely means someone doesn't know about something.
I feel like one of those ants that have been infected by the mind control fungus, helplessly infecting others with misinformation designed for an agenda.
Here's the former editor of The Sun (a large uk tabloid "red top") saying he regrets voting leave.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/former-sun-editor-ke...
There are many others, but I link this one because, well, he should have known better.
I still don't know who Harriet Tubman is. I haven't googled her yet. I'll probably duck duck go her anyway...but that's a different story.
tldr: Nothing unexpected happened, they knew what they were doing.
I totally agree with your other, factual statements, Bezos I'm sure doesn't care for Trump, and does indeed probably support Gawker. I just can't find anywhere in the world literature any evidence that supports your other claims. Or I guess I wouldn't would I?
On the flip side of the coin, some typically conservative media tried to use Google Trends to prove manipulation of instant search results to be pro-Hillary [1], with the same results of not really undestanding how instant search really works [2][3].
[1] http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/06/10/google-burying-anti...
[2] http://www.vox.com/2016/6/10/11903028/hillary-clinton-google...
[3] https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-instant-behin...
I made a comment along the lines of this a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9828295) when people cited Google Trends as statistical evidence people were looking for a Reddit alternative in light of the controversy back then.
Google Trends is fun for snarky Tweets, but I'm still seeing it used to prove points in startup blogs, which is a problem.
Anyways, using products like Google Trends is worth a shot if only because there's few substitutes to imperfect information.
[1]: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-capitalone-insidertrad...
(Doesn't always work. But often does. Or it turns out that the "false" one is justified. Happened to me, once.)
Ooh, lots, I'm sure. It's a brilliant way to lie, because it makes catching you out look like a lot of hard work.
Absolutely infuriating to listen to and read. Maybe it's my imagination, but the media as a whole has gotten a lot more preachy within the past 6 months. The new trend seems to be "data journalism" in which most people omit numbers to the contrary of a certain world view (Vox literally has been getting a dataset from Reddit on 'mass shootings.' Even the NYTs and MotherJones called them out, to no avail. Not sure how people are letting them off the hook.)
I honestly can connect more with those that were "Leave" on the E.U. now than in the beginning; simply because the media coverage has come off as so elitist.
You're seeing it in Britain, where Brexit crossed party lines. The people were told they couldn't have a say on immigration or many other aspects of their lives. Britain's cultural identity, their nationhood, would just have to give way over time to a pan-European globalized society. They were told that high-minded technocrats in Brussels, not the British nation, should run their country. It turns out that the common people don't like that deal.
You're seeing it in America. Trump is not running on a policy platform. He's signed up to enough conservative pieties to get the Republican Party behind him, but his whole campaign is really premised on kicking out the ruling elite and restoring government for the interests of the American people, not the establishment and their globalist agenda. Regardless of whether you agree that his policies will accomplish that, there's no denying that that's the core sentiment that he's tapping into. This is the quote that seems to be extremely popular among his supporters: "We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism. The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony. I am skeptical of international unions that tie us up and bring America down."
You're seeing it in continental Europe, with nationalist parties pulling supporters from both the establishment conservative and left-wing parties. Marine Le Pen's National Front has a very good chance of winning the election in France next year. Her platform isn't right-wing or left-wing, it's nationalist and seeks to preserve the culture of the French nation, including their social and economic model.
Alternative for Germany (AfD) is gaining rapidly in reaction to the disastrous decision to allow migrants to flood into Germany. They have benefit in the polls at the expense of both the main left and right parties.
The supporters of these movements are unified in one thing: a love for and desire to preserve their nation's culture and values, which they perceive to be under siege from uncontrolled immigration and globalization.
Turns out, normal people have something to say about that.
I don't like that capital is far more global and well-treated than labour is, but at least the EU made some strides in the direction of more movement for people.
However, while in principle the EU is great (my only problem is that it isn't globalist enough), the practicalities seem to have been co-opted by international capital.
For instance, law-making powers are still reserved to the Commissioners. Politicians who never have to run for elections again are not the right people to put in such a role, and yet, that's what happens.
The Council of Ministers are even worse. All the national governments get together, fight, make a decision that the EU then implements, then each national government goes home and blames the EU for it.
Meanwhile, things that would actually make life better for the people of the EU (roaming charges are a good example) are held up for years because they damage sets of national interests.
Don't even get me started on the Euro.
On the other hand, the EU means that western europe and some of the rest has been in relative peace for over sixty years now, and there is definitely more of a sense of common identity across the countries, which is brilliant. We've changed from young men dying in the muck to old men arguing over idiocies, and while that's not a perfect change, its still better than the alternatives.
But the forces of maximising profit by shifting work to lower-cost countries are the real causes of the hollowing-out of much of the UK outside London. This, along with perceived loss of identity, causes those people to lose faith in all of the internationalist movements which are backed by capital, and vote Leave.
Here's my reasoning. Immigration has to be at levels, under conditions, and from cultures that are conducive to assimilation. I don't think we have that today, and what's being proposed by the other side is a big step in the wrong direction. Immigration to America works when it's a melting pot. When people are coming to work hard and to earn their own way, not to collect on generous benefits that would make them rich in their home country (edit:[1]). There was a time when a large percent of immigrants went home after a few years because they weren't cut out for America. America does not need millions of low-skill migrants; we already have more low-skilled people than our economy seems to be able to accommodate. Immigration must be for the benefit of the American people, not out of any sense of fairness or duty to potential migrants.
I'm not trying to convince you of my views here, just show you that it's not as simple as calling the other side a bunch of bigots. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to preserve your culture or to defend the interests of your nation.
[1] Clarifying in response to rconti below: I'm not saying that most immigrants are necessarily coming with the express intent on cashing in welfare checks. I think a welfare state is just not as capable of successfully integrating immigrants the way America has been able to in the past. I suspect generational poverty among descendants of immigrants since 1965 vs. descendants of those who came in the early 20th century and prior would show that (measuring one, two, three, and four generations out). I could be wrong and even if the statistics are on my side, there's so many confounding factors that I'd hesitate to declare victory on that basis.
From where I sit, it seems that you're buying into a cultural narrative that has no data to support it. Not looking for an argument, just saying you might want to check your assumptions.
Just to avoid using very loaded words like "racist", I'm going to say I think we're all "culturist" to varying extents, which means we like people culturally like ourselves. We use race (or sometimes religion) as a proxy for this, because it's simpler - note that it tends to be the less articulate who do this. But actually it's having the same values, the same social habits and ceremonies and the same language to share them that binds us. Put another way, a black person who absorbs enough white culture is acceptable enough to be voted president; and a white person who absorbs black culture (Eminem) is viewed with suspicion by many white people. It's not the colour - it's the culture.
If you and I were not culturists, we'd probably look at immigration and say that there was an optimal size for a society inhabiting a particular part of the world, and we'd welcome people until we hit the limit. As with any population, some of those people would be a net drain on our society, and some would be a net asset.
In fact it's a lot better than that - numerous studies have found that immigrants tend on average to be far more productive than the population they are joining, and it makes perfect sense because by definition they had the vision, energy and resources to leave their old lives behind. I'm guessing you are a prime example of this. And it is this exact effect that made the US such a powerhouse - in the early 1900s they absorbed millions of the worlds brightest and best who then built the miracle that was 1950/60s America. Then they started putting the breaks on immigration, and... oh dear, the economy is faltering! Why ever could that be?
So it's generally accepted that immigration is not actually a serious problem, and it is only the most culturist and least successful members of our society who think it is because it gives them a convenient excuse for their circumstances. And any politician that tries to whip up support by shouting "immigrants are causing all our problems" automatically loses my respect because the argument is a fallacy, and they know it, but it's the oldest trick in the book to get the less fortunate to support you.
History is littered with politicians who used immigrants as scapegoats, and in every case it did not go well. Do you really want to vote for someone using the same tactics that Fascists used to get into power? And even if you decide immigration is a big enough issue for you, are you sure you want to support all his other policies? You really want to waste huge amounts of your country's resources building a totally ineffective wall? You really want to start profiling large segments of the population - a favourite tool of the most repressive regimes in history? And do you really want the US military to be at the whim of someone who loses his temper when a minor court case goes against him? You're going to vote for someone who promises he's squeaky clean but is the only candidate to refuse to release his tax records? Please use (or don't use) your vote wisely.
Mass migration to Europe from the Middle East is an unmitigated disaster, even before the current refugee crisis. France in particular is a good example of what can really go wrong with unmanaged immigration. You have second and third generation Muslims becoming more fundamentalist than their parents, developing incredible animosity toward the rest of France (and receiving it too). Without pointing fingers at whose fault it is, the French or the immigrants, it's a total disaster for both. It frankly doesn't matter whose fault it is, it should have never been allowed to happen. I'm incredibly alarmed that the left in America is totally and willfully blind to those risks. They call you racist and shout you down if you dare challenge them. They're promising to bring in hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East. It will be millions if it goes the way of other promises that the American people have gotten on immigration.
We need to be very careful. We should accept the best and brightest from these countries. But we cannot repeat the horrible mistake that the Europeans have made.
Uncontrolled mass migration is new to America. For the first sixty years of the Republic, there was almost no immigration. Then until the early 1920s, immigration was mostly restricted to Europeans, who already had a great deal in common culturally with Americans. Then from the early 20s until the 1965 Immigration Act, there were strict quotas imposed per country-of-origin that slowed immigration to a trickle. (Though mass illegal immigration does predate the 1965 act by a few years, I believe.)
>And it is this exact effect that made the US such a powerhouse - in the early 1900s they absorbed millions of the worlds brightest and best who then built the miracle that was 1950/60s America. Then they started putting the breaks on immigration, and... oh dear, the economy is faltering! Why ever could that be?
The mass migration from Mexico into the US is not the brightest and most talented, it's Mexican peasants. There's nothing wrong with being a Mexican peasant, and I wish the best for them. The ones who are now my countrymen deserve the same consideration and acceptance as any American. But America does not need to import millions of peasants. They're a total mismatch for what our country needs, which is high-skill labor. We have enough low-skill workers that can't find jobs. I don't see how we benefit from adding more. Especially people with very low expectations for wages and the employer-employee relationship. Mexican poverty is Mexico's problem. Why do we need to make it America's problem too? We have our own problems to solve.
No one thinks the economy is faltering because we're not allowing enough immigration from Mexico. The idea is frankly a little ridiculous.
It didn't have to be this way. The American people have been making their views on this uncontrolled migration, on the wink-wink approach to illegal immigration in particular, very clear for a long time. They were sold a massive amnesty in 1986 in exchange for increased enforcement. It was a great humanitarian act, worthy of a great nation. It also ended up being a total and brazen lie by the politicians. The Democrats are happy to keep importing voters and the Republicans are happy to importing cheap labor. All while swindling the people. Time's up.
I had a great trip overseas recently. I loved being in a different place and in a different culture. I hope the people of that place continue their traditions because I want others to experience it as well.
I want my own culture to continue, as horrible as that might sound. It's not perfect, and its always changing for better or worse, but its my culture and I think there's value in its existence.
I am from India. Millennia of foreign trade and coexistence with other religions yet preserved a cultural identity within most subgroups of Hinduism. This cultural identity relates to seasonal festivals, religious festivals, ceremonies related to events of life (such as birth of a child and marriage), etc.
During the last three decades, or so, we have been experiencing a new wave of globalisation. It has resulted in a growing trend of identity and relationships getting determined solely based on economic factors. This relentless drive for financial growth has largely relegated the cultural legacy to the fringes.
One of the most visible social consequences is that of alienation. Common gatherings and celebrations are rare except in the cases of two or three high-profile festivals. Neighbours do not know one another; they do not talk to one another except for a mechanical "Hello"; they do not have a few moments for one another's needs.
Culturally, these people have - if at all - erred on the side of being "nosy", not alien. But, that is the new reality.
Similarly, those parts of culture that relate to the softer or the subtler aspects of Nature are dying a rapid death. Examples include the harvest festival (makara sankranti) and celebrating Sun (ratha saptami). A natural consequence of this is that people are losing touch with Nature, an appreciation for it, and spend most of their time indoors. There is little to no physical exercise outdoors.
It can be argued that gyms and other exercise regimen should be followed, etc. However, I see more value in having a culture that seamlessly integrates them into everyday life.
Finally, I am at a loss to understand how exactly this relates to racism. Any such connotations have to be tacked on; they are not intrinsic to culture.
[1] I do think of it that way.
How can you possibly use "spite" as a justification to make decisions about the next few decades of our future?
Doing anything out of spite (Google definition: "a desire to hurt, annoy, or offend someone") is surely a bad idea for doing anything, let alone a decision of this magnitude, which needs careful consideration of the facts, not emotion.
> I honestly can connect more with those that were "Leave" on the E.U. now than in the beginning; simply because the media coverage has come off as so elitist.
"Elitist", being a request to listen to the experts, presumably; Nobel prize winning economists, the IMF, banks, businesses, the US government, the unions, major businesses, all the sane UK political parties, and so on. Yes, elitism is terrible. How could it have been presented differently to save your feelings?
What is infuriating is that many (most?) people voted according to emotion rather than considering the evidence.
Elite, the few of them that there are, want one world government that allows them to dictate all the policies and tax the population for things like patents and copyright. They want more power and the way to get that is to get everything under one umbrella... or as few umbrellas as possible. It's easier for them to manage their interests that way than if they have to deal with multiple governments all of which represent potentially different power structures and groups.
"Every article I've read treats those who were pro-Brexit as if they were complete idiots, as if their concerns aren't legitimate."
You are using very strong language there, but it is important to remember that the pro-Brexit people were badly misinformed, and the concerns that drove them were completely illegitimate in a modern Western country. So it is entirely appropriate that the articles give that kind of treatment to the pro-Brexit crowd. Such articles are accurate and we should be grateful for their honesty and reporting.
I was somewhat surprised by the immediate inference that people searching "what is the EU?" were people who voted to leave, rather than people who voted to stay, or people who didn't vote at all.
<< For instance, in the month before the Brexit vote, 8,100 Britons googled “what is the eu.” That’s around 261 a day. Google Trends showed a huge spike in searches for that term the day after the referendum; assuming searches for the term tripled, that’s still fewer than 1,000 individuals googling “what is the eu” in response to the “Leave” victory. >>
The key is "assuming searches tripled". Did they triple or did they increase by a 100? All the evidence we get is a line going from zero to a little peak. But without any scale:
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/1000/1*mA4iVZVb41M...
It seems to be 1/3 of the number of searches for "Game of Thrones". Did only 3,000 people search for Game of Thrones?
I went back to google trends and found this:
On June 24th, people in the UK searched "Game of Thrones" 1.3x as frequently as "what is the eu". According to Keyword Planner, "Game of Thrones" was searched in May 2.2M times. Approx: 73,000/day. This _could_ mean that "what is the eu" was searched 56,000 times.
I like how people get up in arms about the lack of rigour of the other side but forget to check if this piece is likely to be true.
Now, whether it was searched by the "Leave" voters, the "Remain", the foreign residents or the people who didn't show up at the poll, that's anybody's guess).
edit: June 24th was a day with few "Game of Thrones" searches. So not likely one with an average number of searches, i.e. 73,000. Maybe 35,000? The main point is that everybody accepted the 1,000 searches.
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?story...
I like the Google quote at the bottom of the article - '...part of the issue was that they sometimes get a flood of searches simply when there's a lot of flu in the news'.
Who would have thought of that, eh? It apparently took eight years to discover!
After this sorry debacle, with all of the major media outlets in the West pushing this ridiculous and spiteful narrative, how can anyone seriously claim that they aren't totally in the bag of certain political interests, that the media isn't pushing a particular world view by spreading lies and deception.
Like those afflicted with H1N1/Bird Flu/zika/ebola etc.. all are dwarfed by people that die every year from the common flu and yet the news portrays them as epidemics to drum up viewers for a week or two.
Not entirely sure where this falls on the appropriateness spectrum.
Unless they specify absolute numbers, this could be a one in 10 million chance increased to 2.5 in 10 million. Or, it could be 4/10 increased to 6/10.
As far I know many developers using Go uses "golang" phrase to receive more precise results in search engine, but Google Trends denies such usage of this "trick". I made comparison [1] between the "Go", "Golang", "Elixir", "C#" and I felt pretty amazed that Go phrase is popular the same as C# - I would like to, but I don't think that can be truth. I really suggest to stop using Google Trends as a "representable source" which i.e. programming language is better known (sadly this practice is very popular, even during lectures at colleges/universities or in various publications).
[1] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26479102/hn/capture_1.pn... (https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%2Fm%2F09gbxjr%2C%20...)
Wouldn't the actual address bar be the address bar of the Internet?
I think that majority pro-Brexit answers about EU would be: Illegal immigrants, giving money to Poland and no money for NHS.
I'm shocked.