Is worldometer a trustable source?

[Till]

https://www.worldometers.info/about/


"Worldometer is run by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. It is published by a small and independent digital media company based in the United States. We have no political, governmental, or corporate affiliation."


Afterwards they enlist a couple of associations/companies that trust them (including John Hopkins). Nonetheless, there is no mention about who is really behind the site.


If you ask me, this is questionable.

[retina]

Originally Posted by Till

https://www.worldometers.info/about/


"Worldometer is run by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. It is published by a small and independent digital media company based in the United States. We have no political, governmental, or corporate affiliation."


Afterwards they enlist a couple of associations/companies that trust them (including John Hopkins). Nonetheless, there is no mention about who is really behind the site.


If you ask me, this is questionable.

The "about" page of any site is usually the worst place to get any useful information. They can, and do, write anything there they wish to, and the truth is an optional extra.

"We are your trusted source of information and knowledge about everything. Backed by the world's smartest people, you can always rely upon us to tell you everything you will ever need to know."

[Till]

Originally Posted by retina

The "about" page of any site is usually the worst place to get any useful information. They can, and do, write anything there they wish to, and the truth is an optional extra.

"We are your trusted source of information and knowledge about everything. Backed by the world's smartest people, you can always rely upon us to tell you everything you will ever need to know."

At least they should describe more clearly who they are. Do you have better information regarding this?


EDIT: Some sites are even said to have an imprint...

[retina]

Originally Posted by Till

Do you have better information regarding this?

I have no further information.

But I would trust Wikipedia and WHO more than some random website. That doesn't mean I find WP or WHO completely trustworthy, just that they are more likely to be better than something I have no knowledge about.

WP has its share of bogus information and I still find it better than many alternatives.

[Till]

Originally Posted by retina

I have no further information.

But I would trust Wikipedia and WHO more than some random website. That doesn't mean I find WP or WHO completely trustworthy, just that they are more likely to be better than something I have no knowledge about.

WP has its share of bogus information and I still find it better than many alternatives.

I agree with you except worldometer being "some random website". John Hopkins and many more are trusting them -> They are making the corona stats right now that the world looks at!



It does not feel good to me that the operators hide their identity.

[ewmayer]

Wikipedia is your friend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldometer

Worldometer[2] is a reference website that provides counters and real-time statistics for diverse topics. It is owned and operated by a data company, Dadax[3][4], which generates revenue through online advertising.[5]

It is part of the Real Time Statistics Project,[6] and is managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers.[7]

It is available in 34 languages and covers subjects such as world population, government and economics, society and media, environment, food, water, energy, and health.[8]

Somewhat surprisingly, one of the better sites for such stats which I used in the past is the online CIA world factbook - but as I recall that was geared toward encyclopedia-style country demograpic and economic stats.

[Till]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Wikipedia is your friend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldometer

Thank you. Following the line I found
1. "Dadax is a US-based and American owned small digital media company. It was founded over 15 years ago. We are the publishers of Worldometer."
http://dadax.com/
Nothing more on that web site.


2. DADAX HOLDING LLC located at 1411 WARSON OAKS CT ST. LOUIS, MO 63122
https://www.dandb.com/businessdirect...-12987085.html
But that company says it was founded in 2010, so it is probably not the same.

Is there anybody having an idea who that Dadax company owning Worldometer is?

[Till]

whois lookup:
https://who.is/whois/dadax.com


If someone can extract some interesting data from that please post it.

[Till]

It seems that I am not the only one who wonders who is behind https://www.worldometers.info/


Wikipedia now has a critical comment on it, saying "Worldometer has faced criticism over transparency of ownership, lack of citations to data sources, and unreliability of its COVID-19 statistics and rankings."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldometer


https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/...ery/index.html

[Till]

Dadax - running Worldometer - is a company. I expect that they want to make money. What is their business model?


Maybe some people will see this as a far-fetched hypothesis, but now I do have the impression that their business model is that countries/states may buy out stats that they do not like.


Look at the main page https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
Which countries have a "N/A" in the "Total recovered" and "Active cases" columns? UK, Spain, Netherlands and Sweden. All countries having a bad recovery/death ration, and I guess that the public in these countries is not very happy about it.


The story continues if you look at the single countries, e.g. click the "USA" link on the page posted before, and you will see that for many countries dealing not so good with the epidemic, the "Active Cases in XXX", "Newly Infected vs. newly recovered in XXX" and "Outcome of cases (Recovery or death) in XXX" stats are not available in some countries that were hit hard by the epidemic.


I do not say this is crystal-clear, but maybe someone wants to have a look at it.
Somehow Dadax will try to make money, remember.

[tuckerkao]

Originally Posted by Till

https://www.worldometers.info/about/
"Worldometer is run by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. It is published by a small and independent digital media company based in the United States.

I've checked the daily increments of the coronavirus cases, they updated each state several times a day, having pretty accurate info, always including those from Veteran Affairs, U.S. Military, Federal Prisons and Navajo Nation,