Public Opinion Polls in Closed Societies

Data manipulation is one of the factors of closed societies that people living in open societies need help with. We tend to trust polls because they can be helpful. I have issues with electoral polls in the US, and I will also explain that.

But even with all the problems with our electoral polls, they don’t get even close to the issues of data manipulation in closed societies. The Israeli Defense Force came across some data that quite honestly is believable from the Gaza channels I follow. Some are all but friendly to Hamas. So here is the post on Twitter and the data via screenshots:

#busted 🔎: The IDF just exposed Hamas for manipulating public opinion surveys by the Palestinian polling institute (PSR) to fake support for its leaders, especially after the October 7 massacre.

The documents, found during operations in Gaza, show how Hamas altered PSR’s March 2024 results to falsely boost Yahya Sinwar’s popularity.

There’s no evidence PSR was involved — Hamas did this on its own. This just proves how far Hamas is willing to go to keep up the appearance of strength

Now, let me pull back and go high. Manipulated polls are a feature, not a bug, of closed societies. This is why I have issues believing polls in Russia. Yes, at times, they are good news. There are rumors that…