I don't think it should matter who simple falsifiable statements of facts come from. 'Adversarial forces' would be the ones most motivated to discover these bit

I don't think it should matter who simple falsifiable statements of facts come from. 'Adversarial forces' would be the ones most motivated to discover these bits of information, and they're incredibly valuable. I mean this is an experiment anybody with a couple of phones and a dash of technical ability could carry out themselves. I would contrast this against the sort of macro-level research that involves modeling and other more subjective components subject to extensive 'tuning.' For instance the 'Uber drivers earn $3/hour' piece that ran a while back. The extensive modeling and obscured assumptions make it much easier to create fake conclusions that are very difficult to falsify.