How not to be fooled by viral charts, Part 2

The outcome of having a dense network is insidious but powerful. It means only the narratives which can go viral do go viral. The collective epistemic commons becomes filled with those narratives which outcompete the others and muscle their way to the top. It means that at a time of unprecedented low unemployment, high wages, high standard of livin

When you look at data visualizations, you’ll do much better if you recognize that someone may well be trying to persuade you of something. There is nothing wrong with artfully persuasive graphs, any more than with artfully persuasive words. And there is nothing wrong with being persuaded and changing your mind.

At its worst, politics thrives on the incomplete disclosure and misrepresentation of data required by an electorate to make informed decisions, whether arrived at logically or emotionally.

A good chart isn’t an illustration but a visual argument,” declares Alberto Cairo near the beginning of his book How Charts Lie.