No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey.
I was just in Beijing and Shanghai for a few weeks and almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future. So this survey is essentially useless for countries where privacy on the internet is not expected and dissent is punished.
> almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future
That is currently the same in every country I talked to citizens. Not a very good way of measuring.
Your observations about China might very well be correct, but this is not an interesting point imho. When I speak to my friends in China they worry about the economy but they do actually believe their country is going in the right direction generally. Ofcourse my sample of the populous is limited: I speak to tech people only, but they do not care about the things you or I think they care or should care about. They are content with the way it is going.
You're missing the point. I should have left the anecdote out as it's clearly distracting from what I really wanted to get across. I'm saying that this type of poll is never going to be accurate in an authoritarian regime where citizens know they're being watched.
The anecdote was just an observation and as such should of course be taken with some skepticism.
When did I ever claim to be an authority on anything? I'm making the observation that citizens who know they're being surveilled online are unlikely to respond to this type of poll negatively, affecting the accuracy of the results.
I threw an interesting personal anecdote in there as an example but at no time did I make an authority claim. So I don't know what your point is.
There are techniques to ask sensitive questions on a survey without implicating individual respondents and still obtain useful answers on the aggregate [1]. I can only imagine Ipsos, being a survey firm, would have used some of these techniques.
I would be careful about generalizing from anecdata. Unless the people you talk to come from every strata in society and your sample is representative, your conclusion may be prone to sample bias.
Whether there are techniques is irrelevant, whether people trust that they'll not face consequences due to their answer is much more important. You can reassure them as much as you want - who really would want to risk real-world consequences for a random survey?
Alternatively there might be somewhere in the fine print how Chinese participants were invited/selected - it wouldn't be the first such data where PRC manages to manipulate the sampled group to get a positive result (see eg PISA).
>I can only imagine Ipsos, being a survey firm, would have used some of these techniques.
You're giving them too much credit. Unless this was explicitly mentioned in the methodology (there's a methodology section at the end, and it's not there), I'm going to assume that the questions were directly asked.
> No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction. Chinese citizens probably got a boost to their social credit score for answering positively on this survey.
How would the Chinese government determine what citizens vote on in anonymous internet polls? Supposedly, Ipsos Online Panel uses https connections and encrypts them using tls. More importantly, does Chinese citizens believe what they vote on in anonymous surveys affects their credit scores?
It doesn't matter whether the government is able to do so, more important is whether citizens have a reasonable expectation that the government can and does do so.
Many Chinese people will respond with positive results knowing the survey is held by a foreign agency, not because they are being oppressed, but because they get suspicious and defensive when being asked, and they don't like to see their country "lose face".
Also the majority of Chinese people do think China is on the right path, especially after seeing what's happening now in the US and Europe.
An average Chinese person doesn't think about current oppressive scheme as "bad", because we've had worse no more than 2 generations ago. They may even think an authoritative regime is better than your democracy. Normally they don't feel oppressed in their daily life.
The well educated, and those who have the privilege, opportunity, and capability to talk to a foreigner like you, have different opinions of course.
> No surprise that countries with the most oppressive internet surveillance and censorship also rank highly in self reported satisfaction
You can look at other sources, like the "Global Livability Index" [1] - it's voted on by the residents of each city, and does a great job of ranking what it's actually like to live in various countries and cities.
One may also conclude that not all the people around the world care about the things that Westerners care about.
People are generally happy if they have growing wages and access to good infrastructure.
> The remaining 11 countries surveyed: Brazil, Chile, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Peru, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey have lower levels of internet penetration and so these samples should instead be considered to represent a more affluent, connected population
I would extend that consideration to most of the countries shown in the results.
The survey is conducted monthly in 28 countries around the
world via the Ipsos Online Panel system. The countries
included are Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada,
Chile, China, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, India,
Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain,
Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.
An international sample of 20,787 adults aged 18-64 in
Canada, Israel and the US, and aged 16-64 in all other
countries, were interviewed between August 24th 2018 and
September 7th 2018.
Approximately 1000+ individuals participated on a country by
country basis via the Ipsos Online Panel with the exception of
Argentina, Belgium, Hungary, India, Israel, Mexico, Peru,
Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea,
Sweden and Turkey, where each have a sample of
approximately 500+.
What worries me is that global warming is not one of the five major worries. Of course I understand that when you're unemployed, struggling to make ends meet, global warming is the least of your concerns.
The US results are strange. A lot fewer worry about healthcare and inequality/poverty than you would expect. In fact only Sweden worries less about the latter.
How many would you expect to worry? In a rich country with ample jobs and cheap food,I don't worry about it much either. I've seen poverty abroad, so maybe I just don't see what Americans call poverty as poverty.
I expect more than half to worry given the number of children in food insecure households, the lack of retirement savings many americans are confronted with.
You might have seem poverty abroad but there are plenty of countries on this list that worry more (like Germany) which much better working conditions for the vast majority of people with little income.
Among the issues included on the survey, the four major concerns for Americans are:
- Healthcare (41%). This is up from May (36%).
- Crime & Violence (31%). This is down slightly from May (33%).
- Immigration Control (28%). This is up from May (24%).
- Moral Decline (24%). This is up slightly from May (22%).
The note about Sweden seems a bit off. It is now January and we still don't have a government formed since the election in September. The politicians have all showed their worst sides in not getting along and the trust in them has plummeted. At the same time there are clear signs of a recession coming.
Things are as gloomy as a Bergman-movie in Sweden. Sort of.
Seems this reflects to a large degree societal values and current debates rather than the"real" impact. Eg US has a lot bigger inequality and higher proportion of destitute people than most of Western/Northern Europe, so the only way to explain the German & Swedish vs US numbers would be by pointing to the values/expectations and ongoing discourse.
China... You have got to wonder is it that the past was so bad? That people aren't aware of how bad problems of eg corruption are? Or are they too scared to say their true opinion ..?
China has lifted 500 million people out of poverty in a generation. They're absolutely going in the net right direction, even accounting for corruption.
> China... You have got to wonder is it that the past was so bad? That people aren't aware of how bad problems of eg corruption are? Or are they too scared to say their true opinion ..?
I imagine it's more about the citizens feeling like the government and its leaders have a strong vision and mission for the future of china.
I think the same thing can be seen with the M.A.G.A. movement. Lots of people are ignoring problems they face on a daily basis and vote against their interests because they'd rather believe in an ideal that is bigger than themselves (even if that ideal is a farce).
The reason people broke for Trump was because he actually represented their interests, unlike the Democrats or the GOP. The problems of crime, illegal immigrants competing for jobs, and trade with poor countries, all drive down the quality of life of the working class American.
Readit News
I was just in Beijing and Shanghai for a few weeks and almost everyone I talked to in private admitted that they expect an economic crash in the near future. So this survey is essentially useless for countries where privacy on the internet is not expected and dissent is punished.
That is currently the same in every country I talked to citizens. Not a very good way of measuring.
Your observations about China might very well be correct, but this is not an interesting point imho. When I speak to my friends in China they worry about the economy but they do actually believe their country is going in the right direction generally. Ofcourse my sample of the populous is limited: I speak to tech people only, but they do not care about the things you or I think they care or should care about. They are content with the way it is going.
The anecdote was just an observation and as such should of course be taken with some skepticism.
People in cults also say they’re doing fine...
I threw an interesting personal anecdote in there as an example but at no time did I make an authority claim. So I don't know what your point is.
I would be careful about generalizing from anecdata. Unless the people you talk to come from every strata in society and your sample is representative, your conclusion may be prone to sample bias.
[1] https://imai.fas.harvard.edu/talk/files/PolMeth10.pdf
Alternatively there might be somewhere in the fine print how Chinese participants were invited/selected - it wouldn't be the first such data where PRC manages to manipulate the sampled group to get a positive result (see eg PISA).
You're giving them too much credit. Unless this was explicitly mentioned in the methodology (there's a methodology section at the end, and it's not there), I'm going to assume that the questions were directly asked.
How would the Chinese government determine what citizens vote on in anonymous internet polls? Supposedly, Ipsos Online Panel uses https connections and encrypts them using tls. More importantly, does Chinese citizens believe what they vote on in anonymous surveys affects their credit scores?
Also the majority of Chinese people do think China is on the right path, especially after seeing what's happening now in the US and Europe.
An average Chinese person doesn't think about current oppressive scheme as "bad", because we've had worse no more than 2 generations ago. They may even think an authoritative regime is better than your democracy. Normally they don't feel oppressed in their daily life.
The well educated, and those who have the privilege, opportunity, and capability to talk to a foreigner like you, have different opinions of course.
You can look at other sources, like the "Global Livability Index" [1] - it's voted on by the residents of each city, and does a great job of ranking what it's actually like to live in various countries and cities.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Liveability_Ranking
Dead Comment
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/what-worries-world-se...
> The remaining 11 countries surveyed: Brazil, Chile, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Peru, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey have lower levels of internet penetration and so these samples should instead be considered to represent a more affluent, connected population
I would extend that consideration to most of the countries shown in the results.
without actual details on its methodology, a study doesn‘t find anything.
- how are the surveyed chosen? - how do you make sure they are from the country they claim - what possible answers can they chose from - etc.
The survey is conducted monthly in 28 countries around the world via the Ipsos Online Panel system. The countries included are Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America.
An international sample of 20,787 adults aged 18-64 in Canada, Israel and the US, and aged 16-64 in all other countries, were interviewed between August 24th 2018 and September 7th 2018.
Approximately 1000+ individuals participated on a country by country basis via the Ipsos Online Panel with the exception of Argentina, Belgium, Hungary, India, Israel, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden and Turkey, where each have a sample of approximately 500+.
Dead Comment
You might have seem poverty abroad but there are plenty of countries on this list that worry more (like Germany) which much better working conditions for the vast majority of people with little income.
- Healthcare (41%). This is up from May (36%). - Crime & Violence (31%). This is down slightly from May (33%). - Immigration Control (28%). This is up from May (24%). - Moral Decline (24%). This is up slightly from May (22%).
From the same source(2018 Dec Version): https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/what-worries-the-worl...
Things are as gloomy as a Bergman-movie in Sweden. Sort of.
China... You have got to wonder is it that the past was so bad? That people aren't aware of how bad problems of eg corruption are? Or are they too scared to say their true opinion ..?
I imagine it's more about the citizens feeling like the government and its leaders have a strong vision and mission for the future of china.
I think the same thing can be seen with the M.A.G.A. movement. Lots of people are ignoring problems they face on a daily basis and vote against their interests because they'd rather believe in an ideal that is bigger than themselves (even if that ideal is a farce).