Citing Facebook as support

An article in the Herald proclaims “Labour move to save public holidays gains wide support”

Now as it so happens, I support Grant Robertson’s bill, and think it probably does have wide support. But what I want to focus on is this segment of the story:

A Facebook page – dubbed Mondayise NZ – has called on the Government to make the move.

One post reads: “Crazy. Currently if our NZ national day Waitangi Day falls on a weekend, we don’t get the day off! What’s that about?”

Another said: “Let’s tell the New Zealand Government through a Facebook community [that] we want our public holidays Mondayised!”

If one is going to cite a Facebook group as evidence of wide support, one should cite how many members belong to or “like” the page. In this case, it is 47 people.