On February 13, Georgian media outlets (1;2;3), including the Public Broadcaster and the pro-government POSTV and Imedi, based on the Twitter page World of Statistics, covered the statistics about the safety of walking alone at night in Europe. According to the list, Georgia ranks 4th among European countries.
In addition, Imedi and PosTV prepared stories (1;2) on the mentioned topic, in which they talked about the results of a “sociological survey.” The anchor of Imedi TV says that “the results of the survey were determined by various factors”, while the journalist says that the sociological research took into account the factors such as urban planning, street safety norms, the issue of trust in law enforcement agencies, and crime reporting. In the stories, we hear the comments of the head of the National Tourism Administration, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, and government representatives about the research of the “influential international organization.”
The Georgian media outlets rely on the Twitter page World of Statistics, which is not an “influential international organization,” as the journalist describes it, and does not conduct sociological research itself. In a specific case, the page, in turn, relies on data from Numbeo.com. Numbeo is an international rating platform whose methodology and data protection mechanism are controversial because its data is processed based on the perceptions of people registered on this website.
Twitter Account World of Statistics
Statistics on how tourists can travel safely at night have become the spotlight for Georgian media after a list of 41 countries was published by the World of Statistics Twitter account. Croatia takes the first place in the statistics, followed by Slovenia and Iceland, and Georgia is in the fourth place. According to the data, the last, 41st place is occupied by France. According to the mentioned statistics, the Russian Federation is ahead of some EU member states.
World of Statistics is not an “influential international” organization. The sociological analysis prepared by the page cannot be found in open sources. The account systematically publishes various types of statistics, some of which do not indicate the source. World of Statistics has active Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube pages, but none of them have a website address attached. The website of the organization with the mentioned name cannot be found. In the Twitter field, in which the organization must fill in information about it, we read: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”
According to the YouTube page, the World of Statistics page was created on August 10, 2021, and the country graph indicates Kazakhstan.
The Twitter account publishes a variety of posts and statistics – including country statistics by average breast size and posts with the following content: “Was Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki correct?”, “What happened to the smartest kid in your class?” , “Just a reminder that I’m following all of my subscribers.”
In August 2023, Africa Check verified a false claim published by World of Statistics without citing the source that Nigeria has the highest unemployment rate in the world. According to the fact-checking organization, World of Statistics’ account at the time listed social network user Dennis as the founder (his account still mentions him to be managing the World of Statistics page).
How reliable are the data by Numbeo?
Numbeo is a global database that provides consumer health index, safety index, and other statistical data by country and city, including how safe it is for a tourist to travel alone at night in a particular country or city.
According to Numbeo, the data was last updated in February 2024, with 498 people contributing to it. Additionally, Numbeo notes that the data is based on “perceptions of visitors to this website over the past 3 years.”
The evaluation of Georgia is based on the answers recorded by visitors about different cities – as mentioned, a total of 498 people answered the questions (as of February 14, 11:00), however, the majority of them, 414 people, evaluated Tbilisi. For example, Kutaisi is rated by only 9 people and the data was last updated on April 9, 2023.
Participation in the survey is possible after a simple registration procedure. After specifying the email address and place of residence, Numbeo offers the user to answer 15 questions. For example, the first question has the following content: “How serious do you feel the level of crime is?” The answers range from “very serious” to “not sure”. Regarding the safety of walking alone at night, the following question is specifically asked: “How safe do you feel walking alone in this city during the night?” In this case, we can mark the answers from “very unsafe” to “very safe”.
Therefore, when compiling Numbeo data, it is not determined how many people should be surveyed, the results are obtained by volunteer tourists answering simple questions, which raises the question of how valid it is to compile a ranking based on this data.
The question of how manipulative information on Numbeo can be is demonstrated by the change of ranking in one day on February 17, 2017, by Swedish citizen Linus Trulsson. Through various e-mails, he “turned” the city of Lund, located in the south of Sweden, into the most dangerous city in the world on the Numbeo rating portal.
“Myth Detector” has prepared an article about Numbeo and the reliability of its data in the past as well. Read more:
Adventourely – The screenshot used in the article
In the stories prepared by Imedi and PosTV, in parallel with the talk about “sociological research”, we see a screenshot showing the data published by the website Adventourely.
In fact, Adventourely is a blog created by a Greek traveler. The author provides information about this to visitors in the “About Me” column. In addition, the article does not reflect new, but 2023 data, and its title, which appears in the stories, indicates this. The article was published by Pantelis Kakaris on May 23, 2023, and is based on current data from Numbeo. Accordingly, the score (69.7) differs from the February 2024 data (70.27).
Where does Georgia rank in rankings published by international organizations?
Although there is no research conducted by authoritative organizations specifically on the topic of how safe it is for tourists to travel alone at night, there are ratings by which organizations determine the level of safety in countries. For example, the international rating platform Vision of Humanity compiles a global peace index based on public and official data. According to the updated data in 2023, Georgia is in the 94th place out of 163 countries in this list. Among the evaluation criteria are many factors, including: public perception of crime, police performance, homicides, violent demonstrations, access to weapons, violent crime, political instability, etc.
In the Vision of Humanity study, according to the crime perception criterion, the country has a good indicator – the assigned score is 1.924. The highest score (where public perception of crime is highest) is 4.631, which is given to Afghanistan. According to this criterion, Spain, Sweden, Latvia, Czech Republic, Finland, and other European countries are ahead of Georgia.
According to Global Finance’s 2024 ranking, Georgia ranks 88th in the list of safest countries. Countries are scored based on 3 factors: war and peace as measured by the Global Peace Index, personal safety as measured by low crime rates, and risk of natural disasters.
The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.
Read detailed instructions for editing the article.
Read detailed appeal instructions.
