Category: Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories
The Secret Ingredient of ChatGPT Is Human Advice
NYT Companies like OpenAI hone their bots using hand-tailored examples from well-educated workers. But is this always for the best? Last November, the company behind Facebook released a chatbot called Galactica. After a torrent of complaints that the bot made up historical events and spewed other nonsense, Meta removed it from the internet. Two weeks later, […]
Sep 27, 2023
What We Lost: Public Trust in the Medical Information Discourse Over the Pandemic
Contagion One of the most damaging aspects of the pandemic is that misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and therapies created unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths. “We always cite the statistic that about 200,000 people died in 2021 alone after the COVID-19 vaccines were available,” said Katrine Wallace, PhD, research epidemiologist and an assistant professor of epidemiology and […]
Sep 12, 2023
Daily Dot A long line of vehicles lined up on Monday, waiting up to eight hours to exit the Burning Man festival after heavy rains and mud prompted a lockdown that left thousands of attendees stranded at the desert venue. But some are chalking up the saga to more than just bad weather. Among those is firebrand […]
Sep 5, 2023
Doctors, influencers call on their peers to use social media to ‘pre-bunk’ dangerous misinformation
Fierce Healthcare As medicine moves to proactive models of care, medical professionals are taking the same approach toward health misinformation on social media. During Fortune’s recent Brainstorm Health event, three medically trained health influencers discussed the importance of heading off the next big medical myths. Jessica Malaty Rivera is a research program assistant at the Johns Hopkins […]
Aug 29, 2023
KFF While health misinformation and disinformation long preceded the pandemic, the pervasiveness of false and inaccurate information about COVID-19 and vaccines brought into further focus the extent to which misinformation can distort public health policy debates and impact the health choices individuals make. KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor surveys in 2021 and 2022 found that large shares of the public […]
Aug 22, 2023
YouTube announces new policies to target medical misinformation
The Hill YouTube on Tuesday announced it is creating a new framework to crack down on medical misinformation on the platform. “In the years since we began our efforts to make YouTube a destination for high-quality health content, we’ve learned critical lessons about developing Community Guidelines in line with local and global health authority guidance on topics […]
Aug 15, 2023
Among those spreading medical misinformation during the pandemic: 52 doctors
USA Today Medical misinformation swirled across social media during the pandemic, but some of it was in a class of its own: It came from medical doctors. Doctors, of course, are just as human and error-prone as everyone else, but because they spend years studying science and how the body works, presumably they know more […]
Aug 15, 2023
Report explores doctors spreading COVID misinformation
PBS What happens when doctors spread misinformation during a pandemic, potentially endangering peoples’ lives? A new investigation from The Washington Post looks at why doctors who pushed medical misinformation, particularly about alleged COVID remedies or treatments, faced so few repercussions for their behavior. William Brangham spoke with Lena Sun, one of the lead reporters on […]
Aug 8, 2023
Doctors who put lives at risk with covid misinformation rarely punished
Washington Post A Wisconsin doctor in 2021 prescribed ivermectin, typically used to treat parasitic infections, to two covid-19 patients who later died of the disease. He was fined less than $4,000 — and was free to continue practicing. A Massachusetts doctor has continued practicing without restriction despite being under investigation for more than a year over allegations of […]
Aug 1, 2023
FDA Head Robert Califf Battles Misinformation — Sometimes With Fuzzy Facts
KFF Robert Califf, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, doesn’t seem to be having fun on the job. “I would describe this year as hand-to-hand combat. Really, every day,” he said at an academic conference at Stanford in April. It’s a sentiment the FDA commissioner has expressed often. What’s been getting Califf’s goat? […]
Jul 25, 2023