Facebook Demographics and Middle East Numeracy

Techcrunch posted up some demographic data from Facebook today (original source). It just so happens that I'm preparing a presentation on "Web 2.0 in the Arab World" so I thought fantastic - more stats!

I even dropped this quote straight into a holding slide : "the lowest percentage of female users is in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, UAE and Egypt."

Seems to make sense right? Women is these countries must be "repressed and denied access to the internet"*? Being the diligent KPMG trained IT auditor that I am, I decided to double check the numbers and compile Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) and non-GCC numbers to see if there was a pattern and to check if the numbers in line with regional internet penetration stats.

I didn't get that far. Instead, I found that the stats clearly showed that the countries pointed out by Techcrunch were technically the lowest on the list (all hovered around 62% female) but actually not that far off from the UK, South Africa or Norway.

So the quote itself sounds insidious but the numbers aren't. There are in fact more women on Facebook in the Middle East than men.

Which just goes to prove that you can make numbers and statistics confirm any preconceived bias. As Disraeli said you get "Lies, damned lies, and statistics".

* This is clearly not true judging by the numbers