What is the real truth of the ‘survey’ seen on Facebook? How seriously does the party high command take it, understand their mathematics.

As soon as the election season arrives, a different war starts on social media. Nowadays, as soon as you open Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, you will get to see various types of online election surveys. It is claimed that these surveys are directly indicating the mood of the public. Many times, the results of these digital surveys are so shocking that even big leaders of political parties and the party high command are left wondering. From ticket distribution to changing election strategy, the impact of these surveys becomes visible. But can every survey seen on social media be blindly trusted? Actually, there is a truth behind this game which you must know as a responsible voter.

In fact, till some time ago, only the big and reputed media outlets of the country, which have millions of readers, used to conduct such surveys. There was a scientific method to their surveys and they had credibility. But in today’s times the story has completely changed. Now the situation is such that even small Facebook pages and social media handles with 500 to 5000 followers have started calling themselves masters of ‘opinion poll’. These pages created at the street level start filling up the survey overnight, due to which serious questions are being raised on the credibility of the entire digital survey system.

How to identify real and fake survey games?

As an aware citizen and sensible voter, it is very important for you to understand the truth and credibility of the survey you are looking at. Before trusting or sharing the results of any survey, understand some basic things.

First of all, check whether the social media handle or page on which this survey is being conducted belongs to a well-known media organization or a private individual. Nowadays, personal PR agencies also run such pages to benefit a particular leader or party. After this, check the number of followers of that page and its history. Is it possible that that page was created just a month or two ago just to create an atmosphere during the elections or to highlight a particular face? If so, then understand that the purpose of that survey is not to know the mood of the public, but to mislead the party high command.

Why is authenticity important in election survey?

Political analysts believe that surveys which are conducted without any solid basis and with very small sample size (people’s opinion), only create a confusing environment. Many times local level leaders resort to these fake surveys to influence the party high command and strengthen their claim for tickets. They make their supporters go to those pages and vote indiscriminately. In contrast, an established media house does not put its years of earnings and reputation at stake. They have ground zero understanding and their surveys include the opinions of voters from every category.

Example of credibility in digital media: UPUKLive

When it comes to trust and credibility in digital media, organizations like ‘UPUKLive’ stand out in the crowd. Today, while new pages are growing like mushrooms every day, UPUKLive has been continuously maintaining high standards of journalism since 2015, i.e. for the last 11 years. Today it has become the first choice of millions of readers of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The result of this years of hard work is that today UPUKLive has more than 15 lakh followers on big news aggregator platforms like Dailyhunt and more than 10 lakh followers on Facebook. Not only in statistics, but this institute also has a strong hold in the political corridors of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh and Dehradun, the capital of Uttarakhand. This is the reason that when UPUKLive shows any news or brings out public opinion, its direct impact is seen in the policies of the government and political parties at the state level.

So the next time you come across an online survey, understand its depth instead of being a part of the crowd. Your opinion is priceless in a democracy, don’t let it get entangled in the game of some fake social media survey.