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The authors of an much-ballyhooed 2017 paper about the spread of fake news on social media have retracted their article after finding that they’d botched their analysis.
The paper, “Limited individual attention and online virality of low-quality information,” presented an argument for why bogus facts seem to gain so much traction on sites such as Facebook. According to the researchers — — from Shanghai Institute of Technology, Indiana University and Yahoo — the key was in the sheer volume of bad information, which swamps the brain’s ability to discern the real from the merely plausible or even the downright ridiculous, competing with limited attention spans and time.
But as the retraction notice, dated January 7, 2019, indicates, the study had major flaws. It turns out that fake news does not spread as wildfire-y as the real McCoy:
The authors wish to retract this Letter as follow-up work has highlighted that two errors were committed in the analyses used to produce Figs 4d and 5.
In Fig. 4d, a software bug led to an incorrect value of the discriminative power represented by the blue bar. The correct value is τ = 0.17, as opposed to the value τ = 0.15 reported in the Letter.
[...]
Thus, the original conclusion, that the model predicts that low-quality information is just as likely to go viral as high-quality information, is not supported.
So, while it may indeed be “true” that a lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on, we still don’t know why.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 10 2019, @08:50PM (6 children)
Where are you getting any kind of rebuttal from NIH? There is nothing to disagree with other than to say the problem is even worse due to misinterpreting the results that are good.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 10 2019, @11:06PM (5 children)
Where do you get an admission from NIH? There's nothing in the linked to say NIH admits this is a problem, all I see is an impartial display of Dr. Michael Bracken opinions and arguments. No sign of formal agreement for NIH, neither disagreement.
And the arguments are debatable. E.g. one of the points Dr. Michael Bracken is advancing is that starting a research with a small study which turns indications of positive results which a scaled-up study invalidates makes for wasted money. While it may be "true in hind-sight", can you imagine the outcry over wasted funds if they'd start with a full-blown study which turn out negative?
Research is research - the risk of obtaining negative results is way higher that the chances of success.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @12:25AM (4 children)
The fact that they published it in the NIH journal with no rebuttal... His arguments are simple and irrefutable (and generous) to anyone familiar with the real life practice of medical research.
No, he says the small studies are pointless because "are more likely [up to 90 percent of the time] to have produced exaggerated results or drawn incorrect conclusions". Since the large study always needs to be done anyway in such an environment, the small study adds nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @01:39AM (3 children)
That's a fuck of an argument.
To simpleton minds, maybe they are irrefutable.
I mean, at least to the kind of minds which see, in the publishing an opinion as it is, an endorsement of the truth of that opinion.
Heck, yeah, let's spend big upfront, without even testing the waters. Whenever approving a project, go big!
This shirley will improve the efficiency of research funding, it will magically make the research so much more predictable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @03:51AM (2 children)
Anyone familiar with what is going on knows he is right, that is why there is no rebuttle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @10:28AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @03:35PM
I turn off spell check for fear of spying and this is what I get...