CNBC recently took down an online poll because Ron Paul was winning by too much. Here are some key lines from the letter of explanation.
Now these Internet polls are admittedly unscientific and subject to hacking. In the end, they are really just a way to engage the reader and take a quick temperature reading of your audience. Nothing more and nothing less.
Sounds fair, it was a way to engage the reader – nothing more.
Now Paul is a fine gentleman with some substantial backing and, by the way, was a dynamic presence throughout the debate , but I haven’t seen him pull those kind of numbers in any “legit” poll. Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down.
He was a dynamic presence throughout the debate, but the poll numbers aren’t matching up with other polls so they took it down.
You folks are obviously well-organized and feel strongly about your candidate and I can’t help but admire that.
But you also ruined the purpose of the poll.
“You folks” ruined the purpose of the poll, which was to engage the reader. “You folks” and “your candidate” engaged too much – you ruined our plans to engage the reader. Wait a second…. what!?
When a well-organized and committed “few” can throw the results of a system meant to reflect the sentiments of “the many,” I get a little worried.
No kidding. I remember the 2000 election too. My chad is still dangling over that fiasco.
I respect the right of CNBC to do whatever they want with their website. They are a private business. But I also have to wonder what would have happened if Fred or Rudy would have been the ones getting 75%. Would they have pulled the poll? I doubt it.
