I agree context and intricacies are everything. On your point about GFW, I know the team is very conscious and attentive to communicating what the data means.
This link might be helpful: https://www.globalforestwatch.org/help/map/faqs/
This link might be helpful: https://www.globalforestwatch.org/help/map/faqs/
It's still interesting, it just means we should see these efforts as narrow, potentially distorted perspectives on the ground truth; and therefore we need to remain open to the fact that other reasonable perspectives might show different trends.