When is support by reason, it does. Reasons for players to know what the truth of the server population and activity is, comes from the need to know how healthy their game is.
Reasons for SE to keep numbers secret are all driven by their need to make the game look good, they are logically much more inclined to hide or alter numbers.
It is reasonable then to think that Players censuses are much closer to the reality than anything SE will ever give us.
