The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Monday in a case that involves the Biden administration’s efforts to communicate with social media sites about posts officials believed made false or misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccines and the pandemic. While the case primarily focuses on a debate around free speech, it also spotlights the potential harms of medical misinformation — which experts say has become increasingly complex and difficult to identify.
“It’s all changing really fast, and it’s even harder for the average person to filter out,” said Dr. Anish Agarwal, an emergency physician in Philadelphia.
Health hacks not backed by science have spread widely on social media platforms. The same kinds of conspiracy theories that helped to fuel vaccine hesitancy during the Covid-19 pandemic are now undermining trust in vaccines against other diseases, including measles, as more people have lost confidence in public health experts and institutions. And rapid developments in artificial intelligence have made it even harder for people to tell what’s true and what’s false online.
“We’re understanding more that it’s not just a poisoned stream of information that people are getting, but a feedback loop where we have loss of trust, and we have misinformation, and the misinformation can lead to loss of trust,” said Tara Kirk Sell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Here’s how to recognize and respond to misleading health claims online.
How to recognize misinformation
Look out for unsubstantiated health hacks, cures and quick fixes, Dr. Agarwal said. “Validate it with your doctor, with local public health agencies, with longer-term trusted resources,” he said.
Keep an eye out for instances where claims online jump to conclusions without evidence, or appeal to your emotions, Dr. Sell advised. When you see a piece of medical content online, ask yourself: Does any aspect of the message seem designed to hook you? Does the message seem engineered to make you upset or concerned? Does the source correct itself when it makes a mistake?
Misinformation commonly includes “fake experts,” according to Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology in society at Cambridge who researches misinformation. These are either people making health claims who do not have any medical credentials, or doctors making statements about topics that they are not experts in. “You wouldn’t want to go to an ear and nose doctor to do a heart operation,” he said. “Is this a vaccine expert, or is this a doctor who actually does no research and has no expertise on vaccinations?”
Sometimes, misleading posts will mention an expert without naming them or quote “renowned scientists” without giving specifics, he added.
Misinformation also often uses polarizing language, he said. “Bad actors leverage intense and extreme emotional reactions, like fear and outrage, an ‘us versus them’ type of mentality and scaring people,” he said. Images and videos designed to provoke concern, like footage of crying babies and massive needles, are likely to be used.
Some of the most common forms of health misinformation include old images that are presented as more recent ones, snippets of quotes that are taken out of context, cherry-picked statistics and misleading graphs. Whenever possible, try to track down the original source of information and check to see if key details were omitted or altered, said Irving Washington, a senior fellow for health misinformation and trust at KFF, a nonprofit organization focused on health policy.
He also recommended validating a claim with multiple other sources of trusted information, like health agency websites.
How to combat misinformation in your own circles
If someone you know seems to be repeating false or misleading health information, it’s important to be empathetic, Dr. Sell said. A tool kit released by the U.S. Surgeon General recommends using phrases like, “I understand,” and “it’s so hard to know who to trust,” rather than shutting someone down or shaming them.
“Hear them out, but ask questions,” Dr. Agarwal said. He suggested asking how a person found the source, and whether the information matches what that person has heard from doctors. You should also point them toward trusted resources.
“Maybe they don’t trust the C.D.C., but could you go to a local public health site? Could you go to a university website?” Dr. Sell said.
“But sometimes,” she added, “you can have a conversation and you’re not going to convince that person. But you save that relationship for the next time you have that conversation, and you just can keep moving forward.”
