{"id":654482,"date":"2026-08-19T10:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T10:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=654482"},"modified":"2026-08-19T10:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T10:54:08","slug":"fake-polling-firm-admits-it-ran-a-social-experiment-to-see-if-media-would-amplify-fabricated-numbers-they-did-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=654482","title":{"rendered":"Fake Polling Firm Admits It Ran A ‘Social Experiment’ To See If Media Would Amplify Fabricated Numbers \u2014 They Did"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Median
ABC7 \/ KABC Los Angeles<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Please follow us on Truth Social<\/a>, X<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, Minds<\/a>, Telegram<\/a>, Rumble<\/a>, GETTR<\/a>, Gab<\/a>, Instagram<\/a><\/p>\n

The media is learning the hard way. A fake poll shop called “Median Strategies” released some new social media accounts and then sent reports showing extremely favorable numbers towards progressive candidates. This firm shut down after it said it was just a “short-term social experiment.” The firm was most known for the fake polling results it released before the Democratic primaries. They included a poll claiming LA Mayor Karen Bass won her race against city councilwoman Raman by 12 percentage points. They also said Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong won the Wisconsin Democratic primary by over 23 percentage points. Hong lost her primary to David Crowley by .80 percentage points.<\/p>\n

The fake poll shop sent the lab results to progressive candidates and several media sources sent positive reports on the fake polls. The candidates then shared their positive results on social media. The results then were picked up by news media and some candidates’ other progressive competitors.<\/p>\n

The election results vindicated Median Strategies’ Wisconsin Fiction which resulted in the company posting an admission statement on its website. “Median Strategies was created as a short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification,” the statement continued. The company stated, in effect, “all previously published polls have been withdrawn and should not be cited or treated as genuine polling data.”<\/p>\n

This statement confirms the firm published fabricated information and presented it in a format that the media mistook for legitimate data, all without calling to verify the data, methodology, sample size, or the firm’s existence.<\/p>\n

This experiment demonstrated an observation already evident to CDM<\/em> readers: polling in America is completely broken beyond repair. Outlets that claimed to be the “worst offenders of ‘misinformation'” didn’t bother to verify the data published by a firm with zero track record, no principals on record, and no verifiable history. Starting a firm and releasing a statement was all Median Strategies needed to conduct their social experiment.<\/p>\n

The LA Times, which originally published the polling data as “reported”, has stated the company has admitted the data was fake. However, a notice of the company’s admission has not been published.<\/p>\n

This is a case study in the smaller scale of the polling-industrial complex: results that don’t serve a particular narrative are ignored, and unverified numbers that align with the preferred narrative are amplified. The media chose to not check Median Strategies because they had no interest in challenging the story. Numbers do the talking.<\/p>\n

What Median Strategies demonstrated, most likely in the absence of intentionality, is that polling has devolved into narrative management rather than measurement. <\/p>\n

‘NO AD’ subscription for CDM! Sign up here and support real investigative journalism and help save the republic!<\/a><\/h2>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABC7 \/ KABC Los Angeles Please follow us on Truth Social, X, YouTube, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, GETTR, Gab, Instagram The media is learning the hard way. A fake poll shop called “Median Strategies” released some new social media accounts and then sent reports showing extremely favorable numbers towards progressive candidates. This firm shut down after… Continue reading Fake Polling Firm Admits It Ran A ‘Social Experiment’ To See If Media Would Amplify Fabricated Numbers \u2014 They Did<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":654466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-empowerment","category-national-security","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=654482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/654466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=654482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=654482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=654482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}