When Google Got Flu Wrong

ananyo writes "When influenza hit early and hard in the United States this year, it quietly claimed an unacknowledged victim: one of the cutting-edge techniques being used to monitor the outbreak. A comparison with traditional surveillance data showed that Google Flu Trends, which estimates prevalence from flu-related Internet searches, had drastically overestimated peak flu levels. The glitch is no more than a temporary setback for a promising strategy, experts say, and Google is sure to refine its algorithms. But with flu-tracking techniques based on mining of web data and on social media taking off, Nature looks at how these potentially cheaper, faster methods measure up against traditional epidemiological surveillance networks." Crowdsourcing is often useful, but it seems to have limits.

Comments

Round up the freaks

[concealment]

We'll start arresting people based on their search and CC usage history. And mainstream America will be happy "because we're safer".

Why stop there? Just arrest people for non-conforming behavior.

Anything but shopping, going to work, watching TV and loudly proclaiming "they hate us because of our freedom, liberty, peace, diversity, consumerism, sexual liberation and excellent shopping" is suspect.

If we round up these deviants, I think we can achieve Utopia within the decade.