[DarkShikari]

It's true across the tech community; someone can post a completely wrong analysis of pretty much anything and as long as it fits peoples' expectations, they'll keep citing it even if it's wrong, and it's incredibly aggravating.

Some common examples include Windows having a lower TCO than Linux, Theora being better than H.264, and of course practically anything in the realm of politics.

[kierank]

I think this is getting more and more common because of so-called "tech" bloggers not fact-checking their stories and generally overhyping social media (twitter/facebook/youtube etc..) because of their relative simplicity compared to something like the intracacies of bandwidth economics.

Unlike traditional journalists (though clearly not the NYT!) these guys don't have black books of knowledgable people to call up and ask on a certain issue.

Social media makes everyone's opinions and views a lot more equal (when really they shouldn't be) and these stories eventually bubble up to traditional media, which have the view that since the whole "blogosphere" is talking about it as fact; it must be fact.