A 21-year-old has identified himself as the man behind the fake polling operation that presented itself as an independent polling firm before admitting its surveys were fabricated.
Rahil Prakash told the Guardian Thursday that he created Median Strategies by himself as a “social experiment” to see whether fabricated polling could spread through the political media without being independently verified.
“I wanted to see if fake polls could really penetrate the ecosystem that easily,” Prakash said. “And as it turned out, it could.” The experiment, however, had already produced real-world consequences before Prakash revealed himself.
Median released fake polls showing Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass leading democratic socialist challenger Nithya Raman by 12 points. Bass subsequently touted the poll before deleting the post after the polling operation was exposed as fraudulent.
The group also released a poll claiming socialist Francesca Hong was leading the Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary by more than 20 points, as well as a survey showing Republican Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo leading his re-election race.
Median abruptly withdrew all of its polling earlier this week, claiming it had been designed to examine how “purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”
Prakash told the Guardian that he was surprised by how quickly the polls spread. “I did not expect the California political press to pick it up on their own,” he said.
Median initially presented itself as something entirely different from a prank or experiment. Before the operation was exposed, its website described Median as an “independent polling and research” firm and promised to rebuild trust in polling. The Guardian identified Prakash through domain registration records connected to the Median Strategies website. Prakash said he built the website using artificial intelligence and was the sole person behind the operation.
Prakash was quick to acknowledge the negative influence the false numbers had on candidates, adding, “I’ll apologize straight out to the campaigns of Karen Bass, Nithya Raman and Francesca Hong for this.”
The American Association of Political Consultants has rejected the idea that publishing fabricated polling constitutes a legitimate “social experiment,” calling it “a deception directed at voters, at the press, and at the campaigns that rely on public data to make decisions.”
Prakash said his motivation came partly from frustration with polling errors in the Michigan Senate primary, where surveys had significantly overstated Abdul El-Sayed’s eventual margin of victory.
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