Online polls are susceptible to fiddling by unscrupulous voters

Chinese emigré community in Europe called in to respond to HS poll on boycotting Beijing Olympics

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"Should the Beijing Olympic Games be boycotted?"
      The above question on the website of Helsingin Sanomat last March provoked a protest from one of the readers, who decided to take action.
      Using a pseudonym, the person in question sent a message to Kina.cc, the website of the Chinese community in Europe. The writer encouraged everybody to vote against the boycott. To those who do not understand Finnish, the person explained in Chinese which colour box they should be clicking.
      ”The voting is to take place on only one day”, the individual urged.
     
The message apparently managed to activate those who are kindly disposed toward China.
      Some 59 per cent of all those who responded to the questionnaire opposed the suggested boycott. The total number of votes was 12,100.
      In comparison, only an opinion poll in the same month relating to Minister for Foreign Affairs Ilkka Kanerva’s salacious text-message controversy gathered more answers.
     
The Chinese case is a prime example of how attempts are made to affect online polls. A large number of communications media arrange daily vox-pop votes on their websites, and sometimes the results of these opinion polls are used for writing news items.
      Researcher Tapio Häyhtiö, who has studied electronic democracy at the University of Tampere, estimates that such urgings to vote could be rather frequent.
      The political value of these votes is insignificant, but people have a need to tell their opinions in one way or another.
      According to Häyhtiö, the aim of this kind of activity is to generate publicity.
      ”Most often, individual votes vanish into the Net, but occasionally some of them manage to force their way into public discussion”, he notes.
     
Specialising in attitude surveys, Professor Emeritus Pertti Suhonen points out that online polls do not produce as reliable information as do normal public opinion polls, as generally the respondents do not represent the entire population.
      ”Typically, only those individuals respond to online polls to whom the topic appeals - or those who are angry about something”, Suhonen notes.
     
The media try to prevent actual manipulation by several methods.
      For example HS.fi restricts the number of responses sent from one computer, and the results are not reported in the news, but they will be on view on the website.
      Suhonen believes that the readers understand that such polls are not the voice of the people. Often they are in fact accompanied by a cautionary note saying just that: "The results cannot be assumed to represent the views of Internet users as a whole, or the general public...", etc, etc.
      However, one could regard this kind of manipulation of online polls as a new way to make politics.
      ”One could say that OK, it is democracy, let us urge our own supporters to move. I myself do not appreciate this kind of democracy”, Suhonen concludes.
      The limit between manipulation and fair influencing is not always unambiguous.
     
In early February, a sensation emerged on the Internet, when the Tampere regional radio of the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE removed one alternative answer from its daily questionnaire in the middle of voting.
      The opinion poll was related to a dislike for foreigners, and the alternative ”bad experiences” was deleted from the questionnaire. The removal prompted accusations of censure among respondents, but YLE said that signs of manipulation had been noticed in the course of the voting.
      ”Within one hour, the number of respondents selecting that alternative climbed higher than the number we normally get during an entire day”, said Maaria Grönfors, the Head of the regional radio programme in Tampere.
     
Today, online polls are commonplace, and a large number of examples of peculiar campaigning or obvious manipulation can be found.
      Frequently the media can also notice such manipulation, for instance by noting IP addresses.
      Fortunately, many of the polls conducted in this way are for less than critical issues: it probably matters little that the various national diasporas throw their weight behind their countries' candidates in advance to see who is "favourite" for the Eurovision Song Contest.
      Judging by the number of times the Finnish entry has been "hotly fancied" a week or so before the event, only to wind up well down the field, perhaps even the Finns are guilty of international online vote-tampering.


See also:
  Helsingin Sanomat´s daily quick poll. Tuesday´s poll asks whether the government has succeeded in its endeavours.

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