Related papers: The State's Politics of "Fake Data"

In the past years we have witnessed the rise of new data sources for the potential production of official statistics, which, by and large, can be classified as survey, administrative, and digital data. Apart from the differences in their…

This article examines how authoritarian regimes construct state narratives about politically consequential events. Building on the narrative policy framework and existing research on authoritarian propaganda, we propose two dimensions that…

Data-based decisionmaking must account for the manipulation of data by agents who are aware of how decisions are being made and want to affect their allocations. We study a framework in which, due to such manipulation, data becomes less…

Over the last century, the adoption of novel scientific methods for conducting the U.S. census has been met with wide-ranging receptions. Some methods were quietly embraced, while others sparked decades-long controversies. What accounts for…

In the current data driven era, synthetic data, artificially generated data that resembles the characteristics of real world data without containing actual personal information, is gaining prominence. This is due to its potential to…

Synthetic data, which is artificially generated and intelligently mimicking or supplementing the real-world data, is increasingly used. The proliferation of AI agents and the adoption of synthetic data create a synthetic mirror that…

Democratic societies increasingly rely on communication networks to aggregate citizen preferences and information, yet these same networks can systematically mislead voters under certain conditions. We introduce an agent-based model that…

In response to public scrutiny of data-driven algorithms, the field of data science has adopted ethics training and principles. Although ethics can help data scientists reflect on certain normative aspects of their work, such efforts are…

Data science has become increasingly essential for the production of official statistics, as it enables the automated collection, processing, and analysis of large amounts of data. With such data science practices in place, it enables more…

Data analyses are often constructed in an imperative manner, where commands representing actions taken on the data are issued sequentially. The publication of these commands, along with the data, is essential to the reproducibility of the…

Organizations across all sectors are increasingly undergoing deep transformation and restructuring towards data-driven operations. The central role of data highlights the need for reliable and clean data. Unreliable, erroneous, and…

The unprecedented availability of large-scale human behavioral data is profoundly changing the world we live in. Researchers, companies, governments, financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and also citizen groups are…

A new era of Information Warfare has arrived. Various actors, including state-sponsored ones, are weaponizing information on Online Social Networks to run false information campaigns with targeted manipulation of public opinion on specific…

Synthetic datasets have long been thought of as second-rate, to be used only when "real" data collected directly from the real world is unavailable. But this perspective assumes that raw data is clean, unbiased, and trustworthy, which it…

The success of AI models relies on the availability of large, diverse, and high-quality datasets, which can be challenging to obtain due to data scarcity, privacy concerns, and high costs. Synthetic data has emerged as a promising solution…

Democracy in a state is possibly a gain to have the government that represents the whole citizens. But the main element of the democratic system is the ability of the governmental functions in the state to act properly in order to gain the…

This commentary proposes a framework for understanding the role of statistics in policy-making, regulation, and bureaucratic systems. I introduce the concept of "ex ante policy," describing statistical rules and procedures designed before…

The concept of power can be explored at several scales: from physical action and process effectuation, all the way to complex social dynamics. A spectrum-wide analysis of power requires attention to the fundamental principles that constrain…

Statistics New Zealand (Stats NZ) has committed unreservedly to an administrative data first policy. Thus, all new methods used at Stats NZ are to be viewed within this context and discussing strategies for using administrative data is an…

Government statistical agencies collect enormously valuable data on the nation's population and business activities. Wide access to these data enables evidence-based policy making, supports new research that improves society, facilitates…