The term 'data porn' calls to mind the tendency in some people, myself included, to get excited about information for its own sake, all the while being detached from the implications the information may have for the choices we make in our day to day lives. Perhaps 'data porn' involves intellectual vanity.
'Data porn' seems to have things in common with other terms recently coined from the root word 'pornography,' such as 'eco porn' and 'disaster porn.'
Though it's meaning has been in flux recently, 'eco-porn', as I understand it, involves having an aesthetic and scientific appreciation for the natural environment without having a sense of responsibility for taking care of it.
'Disaster porn' involves a sensationalist interest in other people's or perhaps even our own misfortune. Perhaps 'soft disaster porn' involves getting a sort of literary or cinematic catharsis from real world disasters without having any intention of helping out with the situation.
That's why I try to ask myself what I actually can do about a situation in question whenever I feel a news story tugging at my heart strings.
I try to organize my 'media consumption' according to my sense of social responsibility.