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https://theconversation.com/even-experts-struggle-to-tell-which-social-media-posts-are-evidence-based-so-what-do-we-do-217448>
"The debate on how to combat social media misinformation is as relevant as
ever. In recent years, we’ve seen medical misinformation spreading alongside
COVID, and political misinformation impacting the outcome of elections and
national referendums.
Experts have largely placed the impetus to stop misinformation on three groups:
social media users, government regulators, and social media platforms
themselves.
Tips for social media users include educating themselves on the subject, and
being aware of the tactics used to spread misinformation. Government bodies are
urged to work together with social media platforms to regulate and prevent the
spread of misinformation.
But all of these approaches depend on social media content we can easily
recognise as “reliable”. Unfortunately, our new study just published in
The
Journal of Health Communication shows reliable content is not easy to find.
Even we – researchers and subject matter experts – struggled to identify the
evidence base of the social media posts we analysed.
Based on our findings, we have developed new guidelines to help experts create
engaging content that also clearly communicates the evidence behind the post."
Note that this is one of the benefits of posting "slow news" - news that is
still relevant weeks after it initially emerges. That provides time for
concerns to come to light, if any.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
