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The job of pollsters has become much harder. Here’s how they’re responding

Businessman using pen and laptop online check survey filling out, digital form checklist satisfaction questionnaire and feedback report result of voting client. Business performance monitoring concept

Enlarge (credit: setthaphat dodchai via Getty)

Last December, a joint survey by The Economist and the polling organization YouGov claimed to reveal a striking antisemitic streak among America’s youth. One in five young Americans thinks the Holocaust is a myth, according to the poll. And 28 percent think Jews in America have too much power.

β€œOur new poll makes alarming reading,” declared The Economist. The results inflamed discourse over the Israel-Hamas war on social media and made international news.

There was one problem: The survey was almost certainly wrong. The Economist/YouGov poll was a so-called opt-in poll, in which pollsters often pay people they've recruited online to take surveys. According to a recent analysis from the nonprofit Pew Research Center, such polls are plagued by β€œbogus respondents” who answer questions disingenuously for fun, or to get through the survey as quickly as possible to earn their reward.

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