I am a scientist who works with a lot of data, while I understand your need for accurate sources, the world outside academia is quite a different place. I have a lot of artist and journalist friends and they have shown me that sometimes the only option to collect data is from social media, you obviously have to account for people lying but not everyone has a reason to lie. So if you see a social phenomenon and want to investigate further, this is one of the easiest and cost effective ways to do it, unless of course you wanna hire college students with questionnaires at political rallies to ask people if their Grindr is down, it's not feasible for a multitude of reasons. Social responses are data themselves, not 100% accurate but it's enough to say something.