"B17 deficiency causes cancer"
How do people assess the reliability of news about medicine?
Ekaterina Evchenko, "Mednovosti"
"The more monstrous the lie, the more willing it will be believed" – this well-known saying has acquired a special meaning in the era of the coronavirus pandemic. American scientists tried to figure out what the average reader of news and social networks pays attention to, assessing the reliability of health information, and made unexpected conclusions.
Experts in the field of journalism and mass communications from the University of Kansas conducted this study even before the pandemic, when the spread of fake information about medicine did not reach such threatening proportions.
Scientists invited 750 volunteers to read articles about the fact that a deficiency of non-existent vitamin B17 can cause cancer, and asked them to assess how much this information aroused their trust and whether they were ready to share it in social networks. In total, eight versions of the article were submitted, which differed in the form of submission and the level of competence of the authors, some of them were marked "unverified" or "suspicious" from the online platforms where they were posted. Some articles imitated official releases, others were written in a more free form. In some publications, the author was presented as a doctor with numerous regalia, in others as a mother of two children or a blogger writing about a healthy lifestyle.
The results of the study showed that people almost do not pay attention to the level of competence of the author and are ready to follow his recommendations if the information seems convincing enough to them. The presentation of the material also does not matter: readers perceive both pseudo-official messages and a more free format equally. However, many participants drew attention to the notes that the data was not verified or aroused suspicion. The volunteers who demonstrated high literacy in the use of information technologies paid the most attention to assessing the reliability of information.
According to the authors of the study, these findings suggest that social networks and other online platforms should take a more responsible attitude to checking published information and warn the reader if it raises doubts.
"Spreading fake health news can be very unsafe. We saw that some people easily believed in the existence of vitamin B17, which is necessary for cancer prevention. Someone may spend time, money and effort searching for this medicine, instead of following the doctor's recommendations," the authors of the study believe.
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