A simple tip in a TikTok video made American Sarah Frank destroy 4,600 scientific studies from a website focused on audience research. The teenager innocently contaminated the demographic samples of theses and thousands of works had to be stopped.
On July 23, Frank posted a video in which he gave valuable advice to users tik tok Who wanted to earn extra income without leaving their home. The young American referred to Prolific.co, a portal where he can earn money by participating in surveys.
The video of the young woman reached 4.2 million views, and as a result, Profilic.co gained a number of new subscribers, who actively participated in its surveys.
Unbeknownst to him, however, Frank ended up polluting the site’s demographic samples and studies that directed the research site to mostly young women.
“We have noticed a significant increase in the number of participants in United State On the podium, 40,000 to 80,000,” said a member of the Stanford Behavior Lab.[O crescimento] Surprisingly, so many studies now contain a gender bias where 85% of the participants are women. Average age is around 21″.
Frank’s viral video angered many users of the site, as the high demand for participation in studies reduced the monetary return provided by Prolific.co.
“I’ve gotten a lot of bad comments on my own accusing me of vandalizing the site for being selfish – even though I didn’t get any compensation for the video,” Frank told The Verge.
Prolifc.co’s chief technology officer, Willem Bradley, told The Verge that the explosion of new users is declining and that the site currently has stable gender levels on the portal.
“Before TikTok, about 50% of the responses on our platform were women. The outbreak brought that to 75% for a few days, but since then that number has gone down and we are currently back to 60% of female responses.”
About 30% of the site’s studies were influenced by Frank’s advice. However, according to Prolific.co, much of this research can be recovered.
In addition to returning the amount invested to researchers for publishing the research on the website, Prolific.co will also develop mechanisms so that studies do not become demographic contagion in the future.
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