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Wagamaga OP t1_iy30fje wrote

About 30 percent of cancer-related content on social media, including YouTube, is misinformation not verified medically, a recent study showed.

A research team, led by Professor Kwon Jeong-hye of the Hemato-oncology Department at Chungnam National University Sejong Hospital, said Monday that it published a study, "Understanding the Social Mechanism of Cancer Misinformation Spread on YouTube and Lessons Learned: Infodemiological Study", in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR).

To grasp the spreading structure of cancer-related information on YouTube, the researchers selected 702 YouTube video clips (227 channels) related to the self-prescription of fenbendazole, an anthelmintic used against parasites in animals. Afterward, they extracted 90 videos (excluding overlapping recommendations) uploaded from September 2019 to September 2020, recorded 50,000 or more views, and analyzed the data.

http://www.koreabiomed.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=15156

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Patapotat t1_iy32z71 wrote

I do wonder about how this relates to other content, medical or not, on social media. Is it more than the norm, or less? Which are the most aggregious?

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N8CCRG t1_iy3ajl0 wrote

I would predict that the more tied to a political platform or movement, the more misinformation. For example, when basic science about the pandemic became political (at least in the US) then misinformation about it blossomed.

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Beelzabub t1_iy5v9v8 wrote

Probably the ease at which the information can be validated is inversely proportional to the misinformation content.

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Neoaugusto t1_iy427f4 wrote

Thats far less than i expected

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Duckbilledplatypi t1_iy3k49u wrote

At least 30% of [insert literally anything you want here] contents on social media/thr internet in general is unproven/outright fake info

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joshrice t1_iy3zoif wrote

I wonder how much lower this could be if cancer treatment didn't cost people so much money, and if wait times to get seen weren't so long...

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AaronJeep t1_iy526g2 wrote

I don't know why people are so suspicious of doctors and drug treatments. I kind of get the desire to believe that drinking tea made from some rare plant on a remote island will cure cancer for you in two weeks. That sounds better than chemo and radiation and surgery and months of recovery with only a 65% chance of surviving it all; for sure. But I don't understand the wild conspiracy stance that goes alone with it. Somehow thousands and thousands of doctors, drug makers and all the other medical professionals are in on this conspiracy to hide that magic tea from you, and that makes perfect sense to people.

Those same people love the mobster movie line, "Three people can keep a secrete... if two of them are dead!" because somewhere they know in their own lives how hard it is to keep a secret, but somehow they will believe everyone in the entire medical profession is keeping a simple cure-all from them and not a single nurse or college researcher has leaked it.

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drillgorg t1_iy48kmt wrote

Tell this to my aunt who thinks that doctors are hiding mistletoe tea from us as a cancer cure.

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azazelcrowley t1_iy4qsm0 wrote

I think a distinction should be drawn between pain and comfort management VS disease treatment for these purposes. I'm broadly fine with the latter being characterized as misinformation and a problem to be dealt with, but the former is often "unproven" and in some ways unprovable except by patient reporting, and in cases where only a minority find a treatment useful for those purposes it can be difficult to study and determine, as well as ethically questionable if its simply a placebo effect assisting those who distrust medical establishments and their pills, including placebos. I dont see much of an issue with alternative pain and quality of life treatments if they are not directly medically inadvisable like quaffing bleach or something. Alternative treatment stuff should probably be cracked down on though.

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postart777 t1_iy6223x wrote

Social media turns out to be a massive eugenics project.

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tjmandible t1_iybain8 wrote

public forums on alternative cancer treatments are deeply infiltrated by big pharma and AMA professional trolls. You can find good research on alternative cancer treatments in non US journals. Its difficult research and often only the abstract is in english.

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Italdiablo t1_iy48gdg wrote

“30% of cancer contents on social media are unproven info.”

Including this statistic posted above.

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Ruggedfancy t1_iy6wkfk wrote

If you chose dewormer over clinically proven drugs for your cancer because you saw it on Facebook, you kinda deserve the early death.

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PolyDipsoManiac t1_iy5gnt0 wrote

(Poorly) editorialized title, reported

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boynamedsue8 t1_iy64qd7 wrote

Brought to you by big pharma where they pay for their approved science

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ShexyBaish6351 t1_iy3hkl2 wrote

I’m ok with this. If you trust the YouTube videos your cousin shares on Facebook over medical professionals, then by all means… you do you, you f—-ing nincompoop.

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