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IPS162 Pedro C. et al.
4. Discussion and Conclusion
The continuous increase of dubious information in Online Social Networks
(such as false information, biased news, and misleading statistics) is indeed
concerning as it affects real-world events like elections and other policy-
making processes which critical citizens must critically make sense of and
evaluate. It is crucial, as stated by Weiland (2016), for critical citizens to be able
to use that “statistical” power to influence, shape, and transform the socially
constructed discourses and structures around them in order to create a more
just world. Modern methods using machine and deep learning and fact-
checking of claims recurring to external knowledge databases may help us
getting empowered.
Let us close this paper by quoting Samuel S. Wilks, who in his 1951
presidential address to the American Statistical Association paraphrased a
note, originally written by H. G. Wells in his 1903 book Mankind in the Making,
in a shortened and simplified form: “Statistical thinking will one day be as
necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.”

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