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Flaw Practice – Streaming Service

Identify the flaw in the argument: “An internet streaming company recently asked its subscribers if they were happy with their streaming services. If respondents answered yes, they were given $100 cash.  If respondents answered no, all they received was an aggressive email from a customer service representative.  95% of respondents said they were happy with the services.  Therefore, the company’s streaming services are satisfying to almost all of their customers.”

Answer

This is a sampling flaw.  It’s totally fine to use polls to support conclusions, but in order to do so, it’s important to make sure there’s nothing shady with the polls.  Here, offering a cash prize for certain answers and not for other answers clearly incentivizes people to respond to the survey in a certain way.  Thus, the results are not reliable.

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