Monday, April 24, 2017

Facebook Reduces Governmental Corruption - Science

Sometimes the science is so ludicrous it needs to play here so we can feel as superior as when some turkey hunter shoots two fellow hunters because they were camouflaged as turkeys.  Apparently the camouflage didn't fool the turkeys but it did fool the friend.  Ka-pow.  (Kansas City Star:  Turns out, the turkey hunters were stalking each other. Then one of them fired.)

The 'hunters' survived but their faces look like the Florida landscape now.

Ed:  how's that?

Full of sinkholes


For today's scientific lunacy we have the premise the measure of Facebook penetration into any given country may be the measure of the reduction of governmental corruption.

A Virginia Tech College of Science economics researcher says the popular social media website Facebook -- and its open sharing of information -- is a vital and often a significant tool against government corruption in countries where press freedom is curbed or banned.

Science Daily:  Facebook plays vital role in reducing government corruption, researchers find

Say there, Mister Wizard, is Russia Today still banned on Facebook and just about everywhere in America?

Watson:  maybe the researchers didn't include America in the study?


"This study underscores the importance of freedom on the internet that is under threat in many countries of the world," Sarangi said, adding that social media is negatively correlated with corruption regardless of the status of the freedom of the press. In other words, Facebook likewise helps reduce and/or lessen corruption in governments where press freedom is low.

"By showing that social media can negatively impact corruption, we provide yet another reason in favor of the freedom on the net," he said.

- SD

Holy shit!  If Facebook didn't pay him for this, they surely owe him and pushing this all out into the realm of freedom of the net is ludicrous since few things seek to constrain that so much as Facebook. The Internet is looking for freedom but Mark Zuckerberg only looks for customers.


Sarangi began the study in 2012 while at Louisiana State University, with co-author Chandan Kumar Jha, now an assistant professor at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. At the time, Sarangi said social media was being used to organize anti-corruption protests in his and Jha's home country of India. It also followed the 2011 rise of Arab Spring across the Middle East where large protests toppled governments.

"Our initial results were encouraging in that we found a significant, negative correlation between Facebook penetration and corruption across a small sample of countries," Sarangi said.

- SD

Who can argue about the success of Arab Spring since car bombs have been going off in Egypt ever since.  Good job on reducing corruption.  If India had bought it too, Pakistan would own them by now.


"As social media evolves to be an increasingly important part of our daily lives, it is important for continued research to help us understand how these tools are impacting our lives," said Brandi Watkins, an associate professor in the Department of Communication, part of the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. Watkins was not involved in this study, but researches the use of social media.

- SD

Well, it has added pretentious narratives if nothing else.


That Facebook is crawling with sociologists is one more reason not to use it. In the view of the Rockhouse, Facebook and other social networks are the worst productivity destroyers since programming "Minesweeper" and solitary card games, the first resorts of the aggressively unimaginative.

That scientists can worm a research grant out of playing with Facebook is spectacularly priceless.  Are you curious how much it was?

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