The WSJ has a wonderful columnist that the paper calls "The Numbers Guy," who delves into the statics and numbers trying to make sense of them. And today, he has an excellent bit about the "fact" people keep throwing around -- that Canadian police estimate that more than 100,000 Web sites contain images of child sexual abuse.
It turns out the Canadian police were citing the statistic from a three-year-old article in a magazine that stopped publishing in 2003. The magazine's source is a U.S. agency that no longer exists. And the agency that has replaced it can't track down the original source of the stat. The lesson: An old stat can get new life when "experts" repeat it, especially when there is no conflicting version of the number.
I love it when reports go above and beyond and question something that we all consider as a fact. As a journalist for years, it is always surprising to me that people take almost anything that is written down -- especially in newspapers or magazines -- as if it is Gospel. Just like nearly everything, they need to be interpreted through common sense. As always, the reader needs to ask, "Does this make sense?"
In this particular case, I'm not exactly sure how anybody would calculate how much child porn is online. And I'm not sure it really matters. If the number were larger, would we be any less horrified? Or would authorities be putting any more or less resources dealing with the problem based on the number? Kiddie porn is horrible and we know that it out there, but I'm not sure the number adds a lot to the debate.
Not that I have an opinion, of course.
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