Everything Is Political series

Numbers Don’t Lie? Why Data Is Never Neutral, with Millie Symns

July 20, 2026 · With Millie Symns

This episode is for you if you’ve ever had someone end an argument with “the numbers don’t lie.” Or if you’ve scrolled past a scary-looking chart and wondered who made it, and why.

In this episode of our Everything Is Political series, Becky and Taina sit down with data and analytics professional Millie Symns to explore why data is never as neutral as it looks. Millie explains how human bias gets baked in at every stage, from who gets surveyed to how a chart’s axis is drawn to which single line from a study ends up in a headline.

They connect the numbers to real harm: census undercounts that shortchange schools, medical research that left whole populations out, and incarceration data used to reinforce racist narratives about Black and brown communities. Then they get into why AI can’t magically fix any of it (garbage in, garbage out), what data literacy actually looks like, and why your personal data is already a product being sold without your cut.

“As much as I don’t want my data out there and being used against me, it already is.”

— Millie Symns

In This Episode, We Get Into:

• Why data isn’t neutral, and how human bias gets baked in at every stage of collection, analysis, and presentation
• How manipulated charts, skewed infographics, and decontextualized research statistics mislead the public
• Real-world examples of data bias causing serious harm: medication dosages, Plan B effectiveness, census undercounting, and school funding
• The deeply troubling way incarceration data is used to reinforce racist narratives about Black and brown communities
• How AI inherits and amplifies data bias, and why “garbage in, garbage out” is a phrase everyone should know
• What data literacy actually looks like, and how to become a smarter, more critical consumer of statistics and studies
• The GDPR, browser cookies, and why your personal data is already a product being sold without your cut
• How to use public open data resources (like NYC Open Data) to engage with information in your community

Timestamps

• 00:14 – Meet Millie
• 01:38 – When Millie realized data was political
• 03:08 – Why data matters, even if numbers aren’t your thing
• 06:05 – Data in everyday decisions: umbrellas, reviews, and restaurants
• 07:19 – The census, Lean In, and mixing up race and ethnicity in charts
• 09:24 – How human bias gets baked into data
• 10:22 – Polling data and its limits
• 11:19 – Misleading charts and axes that don’t start at zero
• 11:55 – Pulling one line out of a research study
• 15:02 – Color, design, and the Family Feud example
• 16:18 – “Numbers don’t lie,” but they don’t tell the whole truth
• 18:13 – Census undercounts, state funding, and schools
• 19:27 – Medical research that left people out
• 20:38 – Plan B, body weight, and what patients aren’t told
• 22:24 – How incarceration data gets used to reinforce racist narratives
• 24:17 – Data as a tool to protect the status quo
• 25:55 – Can AI fix biased data? Garbage in, garbage out
• 30:34 – How to be a smarter consumer of data
• 32:29 – Why we need data and media literacy
• 36:00 – Trusting experts and reading the methodology
• 38:06 – What “methodology” actually means
• 41:02 – Your data as a product: GDPR, cookies, and tracking
• 44:08 – Who profits from your data (hint: not you)
• 45:59 – Millie’s takeaway: get curious, and check out open data sites

Resources Mentioned

• NYC Open Data (most states and many cities have their own open data sites)
• GDPR, the EU’s data privacy regulation
• Lean In’s Women in the Workplace research
• Firefox and its anti-tracking extensions
• Wirecutter (for when you don’t want to research the umbrella yourself)