THE SPREAD OF FAKE MEDICAL INFORMATION
On this page, we will explain how medical information disorder is spread and how this differs compared to true information. You will learn where (mis)information can be found, how it is created and why it might be believed and eventually spread. With a little more insight in the process of the spread of fake information, it becomes easier to recognize this. Under the menu item 'Our tips: recognize false information', you can find more about the characteristics of fake information and concrete tips on how to recognize it.
WHERE CAN (FALSE) MEDICAL INFORMATION BE FOUND?
Websites, social media and mobile apps can contain false and misleading information
Basically everyone can post anything on the internet, whether it is valid or not. Some sites are regulated, but by far not all. That is how false or misleading information can be published extensively, whether that is done on purpose or not. There are a few different kind of internet pages that you could visit to gain information. You could for instance go directly to online domains. You could also use search terms that would link you to content-rating sites, for example Yelp, content editing sites, for example Wikipedia, or social media platforms, for example Facebook. Besides, anyone can post comments and start threads on many other websites such as Amazon. Mobile apps are in addition a way of gaining health information, unfortunately these apps are launched without oversight or regulation. One example of such an unreliable app was created by the Australian wellness blogger Belle Gibson and has been mentioned under ‘What is medical information disorder?’.
The majority of people gain their information from the internet instead of the formal health care system
Many people would search for their medical information online instead of asking their doctor. In 2013, 72% of US adults gained medical information from internet sources and approximately 5% of all search terms used in Google are related to health. Whenever someone believes the false information they have read, it is likely that they spread it to their environment, either via the internet or verbally in person. Because there are many different kind of web pages that could include false or misleading content which are not regulated and because many people search the internet to gain medical information, there is a high risk of becoming misinformed and in some cases harmed.
From a scientific article to a news item: one way in which misinformation could be created
Scientific journalism is a form of journalism in which the journalist interprets information and writes it down interestingly and understandably. Some scientific journalists lack a scientific background which can lead to misinterpretation of the results reported in the original scientific paper. Besides, journalists are mainly interested in selling their articles and enlarging the number of blog followers. They could therefore adjust the information in a populistic way that also could lead (unintentionally) to informational disorders. It has also happened more than once that a journalist has been criticized for writing down a fact while the researcher published it as speculation. For example, in a paper there could have been written “eating apricot seeds may reduce the risk of developing cancer” whereas a news item could include “eating apricot seeds cures cancer”. This could mislead you and maybe even be harmful. Especially because graduated journalists should be publishing trustworthy articles.
Famous people and instances with large audiences are considered highly credible
Studies have shown that influential people or instances with large audiences are considered highly reliable. Many people receive the information they post on social media because famous people have lots of followers and all these followers could then spread this information. Influential people or instances with large audiences have a great responsibility to check whether the medical information they share is valid.
False information spreads farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than valid information
It has been found by researchers that false information travels farther, faster, deeper and more broadly throughout the internet than true information. They found that false news was 70% more likely to be retweeted than true news. A possible explanation could be that false information is often experienced as newer by the reader and people are more likely to share novel and surprising things. Besides, words of surprise seem to attract our attention and research showed that false news exhibited emotions of surprise and disgust among users. Evoking those emotions could be an additional reason that leads to people retweeting fake news.
The promise of an emotional experience
Your click is worth money. When you click on a YouTube video or a Facebook post your click is sold to advertisers. So if you want to make money online by creating videos or facebook posts, you should maximize the amount of engagements (clicks) for your content.
BuzzSumo is an online tool which can be used to find the online content which performs best. Steve Rayson, director of BuzzSumo, analyzed 100 million Facebook headlines to find characteristics of the best performing headlines (link to article is below). As shown in the graph, the headlines that received the most clicks on Facebook had the words “will make you” in it. This is a very effective way to state why you should care about the post. But more importantly it promises an experience, often an emotional one.
Titles like: “15 medical stories that will bring you to tears” or “This food will make you healthier” are very click-able. But we should be aware that those titles were used to create online revenue and that the goal of the writer of the post isn’t necessarily to provide you with true and fact-checked information.
Conclusion
Scientific journalists have a high responsibility of posting valid news since they can be seen as an authority. It happens regularly that articles or statistics are wrongly interpreted. This could then result in the publication of invalid or misleading news.
Because many people would rather search the internet to gain health information instead of going to their doctor, it is very important that you are aware not every information is true. Whenever you believe an invalid article, there is a high chance that you would share that with your friends. Many fake news articles use certain words that persuade our brain into believing it. Check also the page 'Psychology behind MID' to learn more about these factors.
There are many different kinds of internet pages where literally anyone can post information. Examples are social media sites or mobile applications. These sites are not regulated which means that anyone is able to post fake or mislading news online. These posts are similarly spread as news articles written by journalists.
Famous people also contribute largely to the spread of (fake) news. They have many followers and are considered highly reliable. Whenever they would post invalid or misleading news, many followers would possibly agree with that and most likely share that.
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Test how well you understand the process of fake news and false information...
HOW BAD ARE YOU?
On this website, you can test how well you understand the process of the creation and spreading of fake information: can you apply the psychological mechanisms behind fake news and provoke enough emotion to make people share your bad news? Test how evil you are in this game!
This game is created by 'Bad News', www.aboutbadnews.com .
FACT CHECKING!
All the peer-reviewed scientific articles we have used to write this web page are listed below:
