Economist: A recent survey found that in countries with higher rates of internet censorship, there are also higher rates of internet usage per capita. This seems counterintuitive because one might expect that restrictions on internet content would deter usage.
Paradoxical results:- high censorship actually caused high internet usage in a set of countries vs expected deterrence of internet usage due to restrictions
Which of the following, if true and known by the residents of these countries, would best help explain the paradoxical results of the survey?
(A) Many residents in countries with higher internet censorship use the internet primarily for work-related purposes, which are not affected by censorship policies.
- This option tells that 'many' not most (we don't know if many is high enough) use internet for an uncensored use case
- Using something within policies is expected,
Option doesn't answer about usage volume overall
(B) Residents in countries with high internet censorship often use proxy servers and VPNs, which allow them to bypass restrictions and access a broader range of content online.
- IF residents are bypassing restrictions this might explain the stats for the entire resident group, but we don't know if all residents answered the survey or that the broader range if content qualifies as high enough usage volume wise, it is 'range of content'
(C) There is an observed trend in the data collection methodology where internet usage metrics might include both direct and indirect engagement metrics, which vary significantly between surveyed regions.
- Variation in technique still results in survey outcome being paradoxical, this doesn't resolve it
(D) Countries with high rates of internet censorship often have higher populations, thus naturally leading to a higher total number of internet users.
- No of users != usage
(E) The survey included responses from a disproportionate number of young people, who tend to use the internet more frequently regardless of censorship levels.
- Correct
- This helps in understanding why the survey could be biased by having more people who use internet more often leading to high usage despite censorship