[rscott]

The quality of writing in this paper is quite terrible. I'm not sure what kind of review this went though, but I'm kind of shocked it got approved with data points named "After Prism Revelations". Revelations is an emotional word for that data descriptor.

[logicallee]

Your comment is extremely bizarre. The paper seems exceptionally clear and well-written! It's rather short. It gives the necessary background and states its assumptions, it is very easy reading.

Can you quote a paragraph you didn't like? Is your main issue that the data descriptor is defined elsewhere (as opposed to a date range)? I don't think the descriptor itself is emotional at all.

By the way, I thought based on the abstract that the effect would be rather large. For anyone who downloads the PDF, go to the graphs - the effect is actually a very small difference even on search terms rated to get people in trouble with their governmetn, as well as on personal-privacy related search terms.

The effect is clearly there but rather small compared to what I was expecting.

Granted I only spent a few minutes with the PDF and could be misinterpreting.

[_gd3l]

"Revelations" is not emotional, it's a form of "reveal".

"After PRISM Revelations" simply means "After PRISM was revealed", since it was hidden from the public before. So, Snowden revealed the existence and scope of PRISM to the group of people whose search behavior this study is analyzing (the general public).

Not an emotional word and, overall, not bad writing in the study.

[mjn]

This wasn't approved by anyone in particular. SSRN is a preprint archive, like arXiv.org, where anyone can upload their work. Some of the work published there has also published in peer-reviewed venues, some hasn't. This particular paper hasn't been; the 2nd author's CV lists it as one of four "work-in-progress" drafts she currently has circulating for comments, before presumably revising it, and submitting it to a journal sometime in the future.