> Her entire persona and relevance revolves around being anti-crypto. Of course she's heavily biased; this isn't even a remotely controversial claim.
As a generation, we really need to learn how to say: "I don't like this person and I believe they are biased and I hate their politics/tone/demeanour/ethos but that doesn't mean they are wrong about the facts."
The ability to make use of information and ideas from people we disagree with, and even agree with the correct findings or conclusions of people we dislike, is a skill we urgently need to learn.
Okay, what are the facts here? That crypto firms and VCs are lobbying politicians for favorable legislation? Um, okay. Everyone from farmers to auto-makers to tech companies do that. It's an absolute nothingburger.
Are the facts that there's over $200M injected in our political system by crypto firms? Um, okay. This doesn't even move the needle when compared to the billions injected by a class of ~30 ultra-rich individuals (both conservative and liberal) over the last 10 years.
At worst, this is misdirection, at best, it's gross ignorance of the ripple effects of the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling.
This is a political statement you're making. I get it: You want to assert that her work is about something else, and maybe Molly White wants it to be about something else as well. But that has nothing to do with the dataset.
When I look at that website I'm just looking at charts with numbers and breakdowns of those numbers. Sharing data is never "misdirection". It's just data.
The way to criticize her work is not to begin by attacking the person or their motives or the political or ethical implications of their work, but by describing and analysing her data.
Individuals can figure out for themselves if the data or its presentation is useful for them.
In general, you do your arguments a terrible disservice when you attack a person rather than engaging with their work. That approach makes one quickly lose the credibility they wish to assert that the person they're criticising doesn't have.
I'm not sure why you're being disingenuous here, it's clear as day she's not just "sharing data" (whereas Open Secrets, where the data is sourced from anyway, actually is). I mean, the title of the webpage is literally Follow the Crypto, but yeah, I'm sure no statement is being made here, it's totally "just data" ;)
But more saliently, as I said prior, the data isn't even that interesting. Wow, a16z and Coinbase are lobbying DC in an attempt to curry favors because they invested hundreds of millions in crypto startups, big whoop. It totally misses the larger problem with the data (namely that Citizens United, in its current incarnation, is a total disaster for democracy; crypto lobbying is a footnote).
As a generation, we really need to learn how to say: "I don't like this person and I believe they are biased and I hate their politics/tone/demeanour/ethos but that doesn't mean they are wrong about the facts."
The ability to make use of information and ideas from people we disagree with, and even agree with the correct findings or conclusions of people we dislike, is a skill we urgently need to learn.