According to a systematic review published in JMIR, the top six topics of fake news on social media about health and medicine are: vaccines, drugs and cigarettes, noncommunicable diseases, pandemics, and eating disorders.
Since the beginning of the massive COVID-19 outbreaks last year, and the subsequent classification as a pandemic by the World Health Organization at the beginning of March 2020, a lot of information has emerged around the health emergency. False information about the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the treatment of COVID-19, the use of masks or masks and the content of the vaccine has circulated on the most important social media platforms.
However, the same internet social platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, have implemented filters and campaigns to combat misinformation about the pandemic. For example, the criteria used to remove inaccurate information about COVID-19 generally apply to posts that promote the use of unverified medications or treatments, which could pose a health threat to people who follow the false recommendations.
On the other hand, in the academic field, several investigations have been published in relation to the infodemic and the spread of fake news on social networks about health Researchers from the University of Cadiz in Spain, published in the The Journal of Medical Internet Research, the article entitled: Prevalence of Health Misinformation on Social Media: Systematic Review.
"The fundamental role of health misinformation on social media has been recently highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the need for quality and veracity of health messages in order to manage the present public health crisis and the subsequent infodemic," the authors mention in relation to the pandemic. "The lack of control over health information on social media is used as evidence for the current demand to regulate the quality and public availability of online information," they explain.
The goal of the study was to identify the main topics on health misinformation and its prevalence on different social media platforms, focusing on a qualitative methodology and the different solutions that are being implemented to curb this public health problem. The authors, conducted a review of articles on health misinformation studies published before March 2019, through PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus and Web of Science.
The top six categories were vaccines with 32%, drugs or smoking with 22%, noncommunicable diseases with 19%, pandemics with 10%, eating disorders with 9%, and medical treatments with 7%. Regarding the approach to these topics, the research approaches were carried out through social network analysis (28%), content evaluation (26%), quality evaluation (24%), content analysis (16%).
In their results, the authors highlighted the higher prevalence of misinformation on topics related to smoking products and drugs, however, misinformation related to public health issues such as vaccines was also high.
" Our study provides an overview of the prevalence of health misinformation identified on different social media platforms; a methodological characterization of studies focused on health misinformation; and a comprehensive description of the current research lines and knowledge gaps in this research field," they conclude.
