First you call 1176 households. You find that 136 people actually admit to using file sharing software. Not necessarily illegal, but who cares when you have a good story?
Then you take the percentage that those numbers represent, 11.6, and bump it up to 16.3; why? because people lie, of course. Not you.
Then you take the 33.9m people published as online by ONS and bump that up as well, to make it 40m. Because statistics also lie.
Mash the percentage with the target population. Et voilà, you get to 7m.
The 7m illegal downloaders referred to in the onslaught on “illegal file sharing”.
Sounds better than 3.9m, doesn’t it? Has a nice whole ring to it.
Sounds so much better than 136.
Full story at http://www.pcpro.co.UK/news/351331/how-UK-government-spun-136-people-into-7m-illegal-file-sharer