While reading about the opposition Canadians have to self-driving cars, I ran into this explanation from Ipsos about conducting online surveys in countries around the world:

Having online panels is a regular practice among survey organizations. However, I do not recall seeing an explanation like this regarding differences in online panels across countries. The online sample in non-industrialized countries is simply unrepresentative as it reflects “a more ‘connected’ population.” Put another way, the online panel in places like Brazil, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia reflects the upper class and people who live more like Westerners and not the vast majority of their population. Then, the sample is also smaller in these countries: 500+ rather than 1000+. Finally, it would be interesting to see how much the data needs to be weighted to “best reflect the demographic proile of the adult population.”

With all these caveats, is an online panel in a non-industrialized country worth it?