Why health misinformation thrives on social media

Poor health literacy, coupled with a lack of trust on doctors among many people, has led to an explosion of health misinformation online. Sudipta Sengupta, CEO of The Healthy Indian Project, a health information platform, shares his experiences with fact-checking over the last five years and why he considers health influencers to be the biggest source of health misinformation.
Health misinformation is dangerous: ‘Take this medicine for a week and see me after that’—how many times have we heard our doctors say something similar? In most cases, if the symptoms subside, patients shy away from follow-up visits, thinking it to be unnecessary. But take a pause and think why your doctor asked you to visit again. To get an extra visitation from you? Probably not.
Health is a tricky domain. What works for you may not work for me. Pre-existing health conditions, body tolerance, genetics—there are a lot of variables that need to be taken care of. So, the concept of a magic pill doesn’t exist. Doctors need to watch how a patient responds to a certain medicine and customise it as per requirement. The request for a follow-up visit is often to understand if things have worked for you as predicted.
Most social media influencers who oversimplify a health condition and present a miracle cure or diet often miss this context. And why shouldn’t they? Unlike licenced healthcare professionals, these influencers do not carry ethical responsibility for the wellbeing of their followers. This puts extreme threats on the lives of people, many of whom are gullible enough to trust and follow the advice they see on social media platforms.
Lack of knowledge: A lot of health influencers we fact-check are just gullible. They created content out of what they always believed or the home remedies their parents have used. Social media gave them a sudden means to be popular. Many a times, we have seen that some health literacy and sensitisation programmes around responsible behaviour on social media helps these people understand their mistake and course-correct.
Conspiracy theory peddlers: These are people who will come with opening statements like ‘doctors take a lot of money’ or ‘pharma companies want to hurt you’. If you look deep enough, you will find these people have a dubious business or product or unlicensed institution around unproven alternative medicines and practices. The core motive in such cases is to establish a personal brand and attract people to those medicines and practices. A lot of these people work under the religious garb and no amount of media literacy campaigns work to discourage them.
Smart business owners: These are those who have a health programme to sell mostly around weight-loss, PCOD (polycystic ovary disease) or diabetes. Their ‘quick fix’ solutions to health problems, coupled with their smart presentations, attract people to follow them. They will often quote research to impress their audience and make claims on how many people they have ‘helped’ get cured. A deeper look into their background often reveals no formal qualification in medicine. They target people with higher disposable income. We have seen that some amount of fact-checking and online restrictions on their account helps mitigate the risks from this community to a certain extent.
While influencers are responsible for peddling misinformation, a lot of responsibility also lies on the government and the general public. Stricter laws and regulations can discourage people from peddling harmful health misinformation. At the same time, commoners need to shed their gullibility and learn to understand that all that glitters on social media is not always gold. On matters of health, if something looks too good to be true, then it probably is.
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