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Bloomberg View piece on #MeToo data & I quit Twitter
December 20, 2017
I wrote a new Bloomberg View piece about data analysis around sexual harassment and assault:
What We Don’t Know About Sexual Harassment
We lack the data needed to know how prevalent it is.
My other Bloomberg View columns are here.
Also, I quit Twitter, at least for now. It just kept bringing me down.
Categories: Uncategorized
mathbabe 
But don’t you wanna be on Twitter when the Saturday Night Massacre takes place and we all take to the streets!? 8-/
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No doubt there is an inappropriate behavior problem. Can this problem be understood by analysis or does it need an holistic approach? If it’s to be broken apart and analyzed, do we need operational definition(s)? Are such definitions meaningful in every context? (We would need such definitions if we’re to make measurements and collect data, no?)
I don’t feel we will get far with rules and regulations. This is fundamentally a mindset problem, a problem in the way we think. Bringing about meaningful change will need to address the problem there. I’m not sure people are ready to question their thoughts or assumptions.
Separately, but related, being bombarded by problems or infinite variations of the same problem can be exhausting. We need to periodically step back so we can process the trees and see the forest. So cheers to you for taking that break from Twitter, but I hope you don’t leave 🙂
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Dear Cathy, I read your excellent Bloomberg article with great interest and wanted to share some stories from Sweden. Here 10 400/21 000 female physicians signed a me too call (#utantystnadsplikt). There have been calls from a large variety of professionals, please see e g https://www.sbs.com.au/news/why-is-the-metoo-movement-sending-shockwaves-through-sweden. I signed the academia call (#akademiuppropet); I am a professor of experimental allergology at Linköping University. While these calls of course not can be used to get reliable numbers for scientific studies, I would like to let you know that it is very easy to obtain various reliable statistics from Sweden and that surveys done here often get high response rates. Best wishes, Maria
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Well I am sorry that social media is depressing you because now you are not on Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter, I will find it more difficult to bring stuff to your attention. On the other hand, research has demonstrated that social media is depressing and that using more than 3 social media platforms is problematic, so my complaint is selfish.
Regarding sexual/power issues, the perpetrators all seem to be men. But the victims are mostly women. I find it problematic when female victims are not empathetic to male victims. They may be less numerous but I do know one male rape victim and the experience of having somone insert themselves is extremely traumatic. The ‘it is worse for me than you’ attitude some female victims display is totally understandable, but it is part of the problem not part of the solution. The perpetrators are experts at divide and rule.
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Agreed on the need for victims to support each other. Also, I expect to continue blogging, because I get to talk to nice people like you Roger!
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What do statisticians call a Bayesian prior? Is that like the null hypothesis?
What does a Bayesian prior have to do with what’s trending in social media?
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It’s kind of like the null hypothesis except it generally speaking isn’t null. Social media has information in it, which I’m interpreting as data.
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Interesting article in the F.T. today by Robert Shrimsley on how to save Twitter by becoming a Qwitter. This social media platform has quickly become Dante’s fifth circle of the inferno. If we do not confront intolerance head-on, we only will have ourselves to blame.
https://www.ft.com/content/3b1cedb0-e649-11e7-97e2-916d4fbac0da
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