Ethics and Statistical Misconduct

Source

Preview

Digging In

• Original Paper

• Critique/Replication Failure Paper

• Financial Times editorial

• Data

• Readme

Explore (30 minutes)

In groups of 3-4

• Read the original paper

• Read the critique and the editorial

• Download the data + code and take a look – is the code readable?

  • You may have to unzip the zip file of country-level CSVs and set the working directory

  • In 2013, plyr was the equivalent of dplyr (ddply \(\approx\) group_by + summarize)
    When you’re done with this exercise, clear your session!! Loading dplyr and then plyr will give you lots of weird errors.

Discuss (30 minutes)

• What choices did Reinhardt & Rogoff make in their analysis that were later critiqued?

• Which choices were simple mistakes?

• Which choices were statistically justifiable?

• Which choices were statistical misconduct?

• What could have been done differently?

Cambridge Analytica and Facebook

Digging In

• Analysis of Ethics of Facebook Data Handling

• Guardian - Cambridge Analytica and Facebook Influenced US Elections

• Guardian - Whistleblower profile of Christopher Wylie

• Downstream Effects of the Cambridge Analytica Scandal (Bipartisan Policy Center)

• The Guardian’s full investigation

Explore (30 minutes)

In groups of 3-4

• Read the Guardian articles and associated content

• Gauge the magnitude of the problem and list out the ethical lapses you notice when reading

Discuss (30 minutes)

• What choices did Facebook make that were
  • reasonable mistakes?
  • ethically problematic?
  • defensible?
• What choices did Cambridge Analytica make that were
  • reasonable mistakes?
  • ethically problematic?
  • defensible?
• What impact do you think the ethical breaches had on the world?