Numbeo is a Serbian
crowd-sourced
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
global database of perceived
consumer prices,
crime rate
Crime statistics refer to systematic, quantitative results about crime, as opposed to crime news or anecdotes. Notably, crime statistics can be the result of two rather different processes:
* scientific research, such as criminological studies, vi ...
s, quality of
health care
Health care or healthcare is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health profe ...
, among other statistics. Data on Numbeo is not
peer-reviewed
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
, and could be inserted or altered by anyone accessing the website. It has been criticized for its inaccuracy due to its ease of
statistics misuse and general
disinformation
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.
The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...
.
Description
Founded in April 2009, Numbeo claims itself to be a "collaborative online database" which enables users to "share and compare information about the cost of living between countries and cities". The Numbeo website is operated by Numbeo doo, a company registered in
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
. The founder of Numbeo is Mladen Adamovic.
Criticism of accuracy
In 2012, Columnist Alistair Walsh suggested in an article written for the website Property Observer, that Numbeo's information is based on what people say and should be taken with a grain of salt. This is because no third party check or audit on the accuracy of data exists.
Numbeo's ranking of crime-ridden cities is not based on any confirmed stats. Instead, it is based on ‘reviews’ left by anonymous users of the site, making it easy to quickly build an image of a city in either a extremely positive or negative manner. Comparison against other international city data sources conducted by Ray Woodcock in 2017 suggests that Numbeo is often very inaccurate and misleading.
In 2017, a Swedish man showed how easily Numbeo stats could be manipulated, by pushing the Swedish city of
Lund
Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...
to become the most dangerous city in the world on the website's "Crime Index Rate" in less than a day. Trulsson added that Numbeo should hardly be considered stats, as anyone can change the data, as many times as they want, in complete anonymity.
In 2022, a Numbeo claim that
Bradford
Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...
, England was "Europe's most dangerous city" went viral on social media and was reported on in British press.
Same for France, in 2022, a newspaper named Le Figaro used Numbeo's ranking to compare violence and insecurity and titled "Insecurity: Nantes, Paris, Marseille, French cities unscrew in the world ranking of the safest cities" without criticism on the method of calculation, which is based on ‘reviews’ left by anonymous users, even if numbers are not realistic, like saying France is more dangerous than Mexico. While Mexico have seen at least 13 journalists killed in 2022, no one have been killed in France.
See also
*
Boosterism
Boosterism is the act of promoting ("boosting") a town, city, or organization, with the goal of improving public perception of it. Boosting can be as simple as talking up the entity at a party or as elaborate as establishing a visitors' bureau. ...
*
Deception
Deception or falsehood is an act or statement that misleads, hides the truth, or promotes a belief, concept, or idea that is not true. It is often done for personal gain or advantage. Deception can involve dissimulation, propaganda and sleight o ...
*
Propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
References
{{reflist
External links
Official website
Collaborative projects
Crowd psychology
Deception
Misinformation
Social information processing
Wikis
Serbian travel websites
Online databases
2009 establishments in Serbia
Internet properties established in 2009