The very nature of public opinion polls is that they are not strictly private. By definition, the questions will be seen by 2,000-or-so ordinary members of the public, and there is nothing stopping these people from repeating them to their friends, or taking screen shots and posting them online. In the social media era, this can sometimes lead to people getting upset over the questions – asking whether or not they are fair, or even whether it was right to ask about a particular subject. This recently happened to us with a question we ran for an academic, asking about the voting franchise, and whether prisoners or benefit claimants should be allowed to vote.
In this case, the criticism seemed, in part, to be based on a misapprehension that the questions polling companies ask reflect the views held by the companies or their owners. While we do sometimes run some questions for publicity, the vast majority of our work is for paying clients – this is, after all, how polling companies make their money. So, the answer to the question “Why are YouGov asking that question?” is almost always “because a client has commissioned us to ask it”.
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