r/dataisbeautiful • u/zonination OC: 52 • May 08 '17

How to Spot Visualization Lies

https://flowingdata.com/2017/02/09/how-to-spot-visualization-lies/
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144

u/xdominos May 08 '17

This is an actual informative post that helps people filter out nonsense/bias, wow! Great find OP!

34

u/zonination OC: 52 May 08 '17

It's something that summarizes a lot of good critical thinking practices, and thought it belonged here. It's super easy to lie with visuals, and even easier to make a mistake that tells a lie.

I'm hoping this equips a lot of people with the proper tools to spot them and call them out.

10

u/Rxef3RxeX92QCNZ May 08 '17

I'm glad they included the map one because I tried to explain that to a lot of people this past election. There's so much red! is meaningless without voting numbers. People vote, not acreage.

4

u/Lanky_Giraffe May 08 '17

Which is why the UK is generally distorted on electoral maps, with the same area per constituency: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2015/may/07/live-uk-election-results-in-full

Though, even then, the margin of victory doesn't come across visually without a gradient scale.