Category: Misinformation 101

We all need to be more critical of the health information we see online.

Thank you so much to Dr. Samantha Meyer for sharing this important reminder!

There’s always a lot to do this time of the year. When we’re out in crowded stores it can be easy to get overwhelmed and purchase things more impulsively than usual. We wanted to give you some ad tricks to watch for when you’re shopping this holiday season. Here are the tactics used in the video:

Anecdotal Evidence: This tactic uses personal stories, either from the storyteller’s life or someone else’s to change someone’s mind. (3,4)

Deciding against getting a vaccine because your friend tells you a story about someone they knew having a bad reaction is an example., Anecdotes can be powerful tools, connecting to a real person’s experience can sway our thoughts and decisions.

Appeal to Authority Fallacy: This trick uses “experts” to sell products. People tend to have a bias towards authority, our brains feel an expert or popular person knows better than us and we implicitly tend to trust them.

If a brand is using an “expert” to sell their products, pause and ask yourself why. Does their knowledge actually contribute anything to the assurance of quality or are they just using their personality to dazzle you? (5)

Greenwashing: Misleading people into thinking a company or other body is taking bigger steps to protect the environment than they are. This can distract us from taking real and measurable actions towards the climate crisis. (1,2)

An example could be, companies creating eco-packaging but the new packaging leaves a bigger environmental footprint.

Do you recognize any of these? Keep them in mind to make sure you’re really getting what you want the next time you go shopping and add them to your misinformation spotting toolkit!

Social media is all about being popular, right? 🪄

When you see viral content with lots of likes and shares, it’s easier to believe it is true (1,2, 3), especially if the post has been shared by people in your network or sources you trust (4,5,6,7). But just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s accurate!

Algorithms are complicated and differ between platforms, so it’s hard to know why certain posts become popular while others don’t. However, social media platforms tend to prioritize posts with greater engagement (2,7), and information that is controversial or upsetting – such as misinformation that makes dramatic claims – is more likely to get clicks, shares, and comments (1,2,7,8). In contrast, studies have shown that posts on social media with lots of high-quality evidence about health topics often perform worse than posts with less reliable information (9,10,11), perhaps because the evidence is less engaging than bold, uncited claims.

Next time a popular post comes across your feed, take a moment to think about how and why it got there. Kittens playing the piano? 🎹🐈 Awesome! Dramatic claims about your health or global events? Take some time to verify the information before you boost it.