N2H2, PR, and lying with statistics, CNN example
I recently discovered that censorware company N2H2's press release about hyped web sex site statistics, which I dissected in a series of posts a while back, was even in a CNN show:
Reliable stats are hard to come by. The number of commercial porn Web pages soared 18-fold over four years, according to the Internet filtering firm, N2H2, 260 million pages of porn. Another filter company estimates that 12 percent of all Web sites are porn sites.
Now, remember, this is CNN. It's Old Media. How does one counteract it?
Ah, but I have a BLOG! Feel my mighty blogging press-reach. Thrill to the vast audience which hangs on my every word, as I masterfully point out that the Web itself has grown by a huge amount over the years, so the proportion of "commercial porn Web pages" may not have changed at all. Experience the disintermediated media-power of emergent user pundocracy.
Or are those crickets I hear?
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in censorware , journo | on November 18, 2003 11:59 PM (Infothought permalink) | Followups
MMMmm...Statistics generated by a company to support its own point of view. I think any talk of number of web pages these days is meaningless given how many of them are dynamically generated.