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this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2025
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That covers some things, but the algorithm feeds people such nonsense at such a high rate that it’s hard to keep up with.
I think your idea is laudable. Normally I'm not one to dissuade someone from fighting a good fight in the age of disinformation, but I worry that you're coming at this problem from the wrong direction, and you alone will never be able to fight misinformation at its source.
Have you ever been able to change someone's mind on an insane belief, just because you knew exactly where it came from? Or because you were aware of the idea before they were?
We're talking about a hydra's infinite rectum here. No matter what you -ectomy, more stool samples are coming than you will ever be able to process and analyze.
More often than not, a person does not rationalize their way into believing misinformation. It is not a logical process of collecting and analyzing facts. It is an emotional process of consuming content that elicits a level of fear, pride, or hate.
They fear what they do not understand.
They are proud to be a part of a group that does "understand".
They hate feeling like they're being told what to do and what to think. They feel a vulnerability within themselves - a gap in their knowledge - and rather than address it as an internality, they externalize it. They don't understand because you don't want them to understand.
To their mind, the answer can't be complex. They have arrived at the belief that knowledgeable, professional, and underpaid experts are all wrong or outright greedy and dishonest, and that comprehending truth doesn't require significant education and research.
Really, they believe the answer should be simple. If it isn't, that must mean the "true" answer - the easily digestible TIL TLDR of the entire field of healthcare that they could actually understand without much effort - well, that answer must be hidden from them.
Note that this is not intended to describe a particular group or flavor of ideology or conspiracy, but rather the experience of believing in ideas that contradict observable reality, verifiable fact, and leigitimate sources of information.
You can't just come at them with logic, evidence, or rationality. These things are necessary but insufficient. You need to approach it with emotion and empathy. Bedside manner is crucial.
Don't waste your time trying to master the lies - spend time mastering the truth. Present your knowledge as clearly and simply as possible. Address your patients holistically. Use their language. Teach them without condescending to them. Don't try to tear apart individual pieces of information they regurgitate, but understand the underlying themes and emotions that you can actually help them with.
Lastly, please don't burn yourself out. It's brave to want to immerse yourself in the rabid chaos of digital misinformation for the sake of your patients, but it's a soul-crushing exercise that should be undertaken with extreme caution.
There are plenty of patients who really just need a good doctor more than anything else. And some of them will be more likely to believe in scientific truth when they already believe in the knowledge and good faith of a scientific expert.
Instagram reels and TikTok are filled to the brim with medical misinformation.
You may enjoy Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine. They do a lot of history stuff but as time has gone on it has more and more been about current events, exploring the history and science behind these grifts. Not exactly what you're asking for, but Dr. Sydnee is one of my leftist role models and I think they do great work to identify and explain these things to laypeople.
This looks like a great recommendation, thank you!
ask your patients where they are getting their stuff from, that way you will also know what places are more popular than others.
I do ask them, but some of the things they say/ask about are just so baffling that I'd like to know about it ahead of time so I know what to respond with or recommend instead. Also, it's kind of along the lines of needing to know all the slang terms for drugs so I know what they're talking about when they OD on something or take something that interferes with their actual medications.
There I can help, well kind of: not a medical advice though!
I highly appreciate the effort you're putting in - and in addition to preparing for everything practice w few communication patterns on how to make them give you the info you need. You won't be prepared enough for some of the shit people come up with, no chance.
S good example could be a set of guided questions or statements they should disagree or agree with.
I'm not medically educated at all so I can't come up with food examples but what I'm trying to say is: prepare at least as well for crazy as you're preparing for hard facts.
And for the drugs I can at least give s language perspective: slang has often very local derivates so while pages Likes these are w good stating point: https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/drug-alcohol-slang/ nothing beats a native speaker.
So you could either start a career as drug addict, or if you lack the funds and time, you could reach out to your local social workers and ask them to give a brief slang training wherever you work. From experience many are very happy to help others who get helping!
Just a few ideas, perhaps something resonates with you! Good luck ❤️
Reddit, facebook, quora..........
Just search any symptom and add to it "home remedies" what ever will come will probably include medical misinformation.
That covers some things, but the algorithm feeds people such nonsense at such a high rate that it's hard to keep up with.
Also try looking up random medications names and see what comes up ? As a complete layman that is usually what I do when I (or a family member) am taking or about to take some new meds. Of course with a generalist scientific background, the best I can do is try to compare different sources and apply some critical thinking/common sense, but I assume a lot of people don't do that (and be fair, I don't always do it either). And/or trust the doctors who are sometimes incompetent self-important assholes (not generalizing at all, but I've heard and seen first hand my fair share of horror stories)
I have to know all of the medications for my board exams, but knowing what bullshit the pharma companies are advertising would be useful. There's a lot of people who will ask for Ozempic and then be horrified when they learn about the side effects (or the price of the medication). I worry a lot about the "compounding pharmacies" that will mail people knock-off Ozempic with minimal medical oversight. It's just a matter of time before someone gets killed by the pancreatitis or something.
Yeah my comment is probably not that useful to you since I am in France where the medical misinformation issues are different from other countries. Here it's illegal to advertise drugs that are only sold with a prescription, but pharmaceutical companies sell all kinds of make-believe bullshit drugs that are basically expensive placebos.
Here's a couple of pics of some funny ones a friend saw in a pharmacy just the other week
(The right one says "doubts - indecision"....)
Search for health and they don't want you to know or doctors don't want you to know.
That will be a good downtime activity, but I also want to know what the algorithms are shoveling.
The more you engage with a type of post the more they will give yo that type of post so go on tiktok or threads and just engage with a bunch of them and you will see more of it but just know that especially by engaging you will actively be worsening misinformation. I know you said 1: million doesn’t matter but especially if you are looking for source material your initial engagement could easily cause a post that would otherwise stay in those mini cults to get spread
Facebook, tiktok, insta. Influencer girls promoting their own products, mineral stones, etc. Groups with conservatives, old people, MAGA, right wing extremists, hippies, yoga guru's, basically any group with low IQ people who feel hurt and claim a monopoly on the truth. Truth social could be great too. And religious groups of course.
Truth social is one I hadn't thought of. I should also look into getting on an emailing list from Goop.
Be aware that when you seek out medical disinfo on social media, you don't just increase its visibility in your own feed, but in everyone else's as well.
One account in the milieu isn't going to make that much of a difference.
I wonder if there is a list of Joe Rogan guests or an AI summary of the episodes. Also, Snopes covers a lot and won't rot your brain.
I'll be looking into free versions of Chat GPT and the like. And I like the idea of AI summaries of Joe Rogan because I don't think I could actually listen to him without having an actual aneurysm.
University press releases, they often are very far from what the actual research says
Bookmarked on my personal accounts because then I'll have access to full text articles through my institutional subscription when I go digging. :)
Not really the internet, but I remember Dr. Oz being a daytime TV show that was full of quackery delivered as though it was coming from an expert.
Dr. Oz and Oprah are featured in Behind The Bastards for a reason. Oprah actually got a 7-episode mini-series.
My wife is a Rheumatologist. She actually had a patient attempt to use an article SHE WROTE to argue against her diagnosis. The article the patient was "citing" was not even applicable to the symptoms the patient presented.
I got you.
Any pyramid scheme that has anything to do with food or health. Their books are troves of made-up shit. Sometimes they’ll say true things (i.e. highly processed foods are less nutritious than whole foods), but then tell you to eat highly processed food five times a day.
They’ll have several hour-long meetings where they talk about how the magic crystals, protein bar, or energy shake is changing their life.
Their websites are fucking whack-a-doodle. There’s usually one quack with an MD rubber-stamping, fabricating, and/or misrepresenting evidence.
Go on Facebook, look up and type any illness + cure
They both should have associated accounts across multiple social media sites.
That's actually super helpful. I'll need a few "content creators" to seed the dummy account with.
Dunno what type of tablet you’ve got but Apple News is pretty solidly loaded with medical fear mongering that’s sanewashed via being from interviews with “experts.”
Buzzfeed, Newsweek, HuffPost, etc. are your main name-brand culprits. Other magazines/websites also push this garbage but it’s a little more obvious.
Other key words across social media would probably be “nutritionist,” “coach,” “guru,” and other catchy terms that basically mean unlicensed. I’ve never used TikTok but when I was on Instagram years ago those were the biggest offenders.
Signing up for emailing lists is probably a good place to start. I also accidentally subscribed to an RFK apologist Substack when it was recommending health-related writers to me.
4chan comes to mind. /fit/ would probably have a bunch of BS for you to trawl, /ck/ will probably have dietary misinfo, maybe /sci/ as well.
That will actually be helpful towards the weird stuff that men get into in addition to wholly unnecessary "hormone replacement therapy" (aka juicing on steroids)
Not a doctor but I'd love this as well. I've seen various assorted noctors and nurses and other patients spout some shit that was so wildly off base I couldn't even imagine how this came about or was even believable in the slightest.
I remember the one time a really good nurse told me how I "seemed alright" because I was decently informed on my condition and asked appropriate questions and it's been in the back of my head ever since how she thought it was a noteworthy exception to the norm that she could somewhat trust me.
Look for any common condition using any search engine and discover just how misinformed the global population really is.
I am an ICT professional with over 40 years experience and in my own field it's often obvious how a technical response sounds right but is in reality absolute bollocks.
I know from lived medical experience that the same is true for medicine. However, being outside my own field it's much harder to detect, even with quotes and citations.
Any homeopathic group or moms advice group.
Just look up real medical issues and pick the opposite of what looks real.
The algorithms will take care of the rest because people who fall for it don't just look up their own conditions, they start down the rabbit hole of "all medicine is fake" because that's easier to rationalize than doctor's are only wrong with their condition.
That's why it's so dangerous, you don't have to seek it out. Those videos get high engagement so the algorithm shoves them down everyone's throat
🤣