Young people researching health topics on TikTok will find an alarming amount of misinformation on the platform, a new study says.
Further, almost half of the videos came from “non-medical influencers” – content creators with more than 10,000 followers who did not identify themselves as medical professionals.At the very least, the videos cause confusion or lead people to delay effective care in favor of half-baked alternative therapies.
Health information has flooded TikTok alongside catchy dances and silly dares, researchers said. Hashtags like #celiactok, #diabetestok and #sinustok have millions of views, as people with health problems search out information and connect with other patients. To get an idea of how much harmful misinformation is being propagated on TikTok, the research team focused on a specific health condition and performed their search during a single 24-hour period. That strategy was meant to limit the effects of the ever-shifting algorithm that drives TikTok., #sinus and #sinusinfection. They then cataloged the videos based on uploader types, content categories and content types, and assessed the videos for reliability and understandability.
Only 15% of videos from medical professionals contained non-factual information, compared to nearly 60% of videos from non-medical influencers, results show.
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