You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
2 questions
Facebook will begin asking its users whether they recognize and trust news sources — a two-question survey that will then be fed back into a complicated algorithm to favor and disfavor links from publications in Facebook’s news feed. Hopefully this isn’t a hare-brained, poorly thought out or potentially destructive process. Hopefully hyper-partisan trolls don’t have the ability to commandeer internet surveys to sabotage perceived rivals. [BuzzFeed]
3.4 percent
There were 38,284 on-location filming days for movies, commercials and television in the Greater Los Angeles region last year. That was down 3.4 percent. Television shoot days dropped 7.6 percent and film shoot days dropped 19.8 percent. [Variety]
13 Oscar nominations
Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” led the count of Oscar nominations announced on Tuesday with 13, including both acting and technical awards. We’re able to get a sense as to the state of the Oscar race and to predict likely winners by analyzing the precursor award shows leading up to the Academy Awards. [FiveThirtyEight, ABC News]
More than 20 novels
Ursula K. Le Guin — an icon of the science fiction genre — wrote more than 20 novels, over 100 short stories, seven essay collections, 13 children’s books and more before passing away Tuesday. Some of her books have been in print for nearly 50 years. [The New York Times]
117th ranked
The 117th-most trafficked website in the world, according to Amazon’s web tracker, is Coinmarketcap.com, which cryptocurrency prices and is operated by a 31-year-old programmer in Long Island City, Queens. In early January, a mild tweak to how the site incorporated Korean pricing contributed towards a $100 billion digital currency selloff. [The Wall Street Journal]
766,200 signatures
The Voting Restoration Amendment in Florida surpassed the necessary 766,200 signatures this week to get on the ballot in November. If 60 percent of Floridians approve, the voting rights of more than 1.5 million citizens, currently disenfranchised for life due to former felony convictions, would be restored. [PalmBeachPost]
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