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Medical professionals and biomedical scientists (whom we will refer to as “perceived experts”) are often identified as trusted sources of medical information who may be especially effective at persuading people to get vaccinated. However, the prevalence and influence of perceived experts acting in the opposite role as disseminators of false and misleading claims about health is poorly characterized. Here, we test the relative influence of perceived experts in a Twitter community that spreads anti-vaccine misinformation. We also test whether any boost in influence associated with perceived expertise is greater within the anti-vaccine community compared to the pro-vaccine community.

This article examines the phenomenon of fake news through a survey of university students in the United Kingdom. The survey, composed through a selection of factual and non-factual content/news and complemented through a validation tool, sought to assess the attitudes of these respondents to items of factual misinformation before and after these were verified with the tool. The findings from the survey present online misinformation as a very complex and unfolding phenomenon in terms of user behaviour, particularly when presented with an authentication tool. The majority of respondents failed in identifying factual from fake news posts. While respondents indicated mistrust in using third-party validation tools, the majority indicated a critical need for a verification tool that would support their quest and increase their trust in what they read online.

З початком повномасштабної неспровокованої військової агресії Російської Федерації алгоритми та модератори соцмережі «Фейсбук» стали посилено обмежувати проукраїнський контент, посилаючись на стандарти спільноти, в яких декларується захист споживачів мережевого контенту від насильства та злочинної поведінки, неприйнятного змісту, гарантується захист їхньої безпеки та психологічної рівноваги тощо. Мета статті — з’ясувати типові формальні підстави видалення проукраїнського контенту алгоритмами й модераторами мережі «Фейсбук», виокремити стандарти спільноти, які потребують перегляду в умовах війни. Методика дослідження охоплює аналіз попереджень щодо блокування контенту та критичний аналіз Принципів, умов обслуговування та стандартів спільноти «Фейсбук». У повідомленнях користувачам щодо блокування контенту йдеться насамперед про порушення стандартів, прописаних у рубриках «Насильство та підбурювання», «Небезпечні особи та організації», «Мова ворожнечі», «Насильство та чутливий зміст», «Дезінформація». Дедалі частіше алгоритми маркують контент українських користувачів як «чутливий» (наприклад, «бучанська рука», «ізюмська рука», фото тіл цивільних та (або) військових), хоча саме оприлюднення таких матеріалів допомагає донести наслідки військових злочинів рашистського режиму, підвищити обізнаність світової спільноти про них, сприяючи наданню Україні міжнародної фінансової, гуманітаної, правової та військової допомоги. Поширеною стала практика боротьби з так званим межовим вмістом, коли матеріали не показуються у стрічках новин, але не блокуються. За стандартами спільноти всі користувачі мережі однаково захищені, однак при цьому фактично не враховується історичний контекст та поточні події, які можуть знімати табу на висвітлення контенту. Щоб приймати справедливі рішення, потрібно залучати неупереджених рецензентів з відповідним культурним і політичним досвідом, розумінням контексту. Також вважаємо допустимим частково переглянути вимоги стандартів щодо заборони «мови ворожнечі», яка стає засобом емоційної розрядки всередині спільноти, котра є жертвою масштабної неспровокованої військової агресії Росії. With the beginning of the full-scale military aggression of the Russian Federation, the algorithms and moderators of the Facebook social network began to strongly limit pro- Ukrainian content, referring to community standards, which declare the protection of content consumers from violence and criminal behavior, unacceptable content, guarantee the protection of their safety, etc. The purpose of the article is to find out the formal grounds for removing pro-Ukrainian content by algorithms and moderators of the Facebook network and their consistency with Community standards. The research methodology includes an analysis of Facebook’s content blocking warnings and a critical analysis of Facebook’s Principles, Terms of Service and Community Standards. Notifications regarding blocking of content refer primarily to violations of the standards prescribed in the headings «Violence and incitement», «Dangerous persons and organizations», «Hate speech», «Violence and sensitive content», «Disinformation». More and more often, the algorithms of the social network mark the content of Ukrainian users as «sensitive» (for example, «Bucha’s hand», «Izium’s hand», photos of the bodies of civilians and (or) soldiers), although it is precisely such materials that have the potential to convey the consequences of the war crimes of the Russian regime, to raise awareness about them, to promote the provision of international humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. The practice of combating the so-called border content, when materials are not shown in news feeds, but are not blocked, has also become common. According to community standards, all network users are equally protected, but this does not actually consider the historical context and current events that can lift the taboo on content coverage. To make fair decisions, it is necessary to involve impartial reviewers with relevant cultural and political experience, understanding of the context. We also consider it permissible to relax the requirements of the standards for the use of «hate speech», which in the conditions of war becomes a means of emotional reliving within the community, which is a victim of unprovoked aggression.

Psychological inoculation has proven effective at reducing susceptibility to misinformation. We present a novel storytelling approach to inoculation against susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy (dmeta‐analysis = 0.82), a known cognitive predictor of conspiracy beliefs. In Study 1 (Pilot; N = 161), a narrative inoculation (vs. control) reduced susceptibility to conjunction errors, and in turn, conspiracy beliefs regarding government malfeasance. In Study 2 (main experiment; N = 141; pre‐registered), two separate narrative inoculations (vs. control) directly reduced susceptibility to conjunction errors, and indirectly reduced conspiracy beliefs regarding extra‐terrestrial cover‐ups. In addition, the inoculation messages improved detection of both real and fake news (‘truth discernment’). We discuss theoretical and practical implications, including the use of inoculation to induce critical thinking styles, and tailoring inoculations that may suit storytelling mediums.

With ample evidence that foreign state actors and non-state norm entrepreneurs are engaged in misinformation and disinformation campaigns challenging the European Union’s human rights framework on LGBT+, this study analyses the narratives that these actors disseminate. Based on two methods – a standard literature review of academic and “grey” literature, as well as complementary analysis of entries in the EUvsDisinfo database – the study identifies four main narratives that can be attributed to or are actively sponsored by non-European actors: 1) Opposing gender ideology and protecting God’s order, 2) Heteroactivism and the protection of the rights of the “natural” family, 3) LGBT+ rights as Western colonialism, and 4) LGBT+ rights as a threat to the rights of children. Even though EU’s strong protection of freedom of speech makes it challenging to address misinformation and disinformation that falls outside hate-speech legislation, this paper argues that exploring the following counter measures could be worthwhile: 1) harmonization of European legal frameworks, 2) financial scrutiny and 3) strengthened automatic detection, editorial policies, and community flagging, as well as the capacity to systematically deal with misinformation and disinformation campaign targeting LGBT+ across digital spaces in Europe., Uz niz dokaza da su strani akteri i nedržavni borci za norme uključeni u širenje netočnih informacija i dezinformacija koje narušavaju okvir ljudskih prava Europske unije za LGBT+ osobe, ova studija analizira narative koje ti akteri zagovaraju. Na temelju dviju metoda – standardnog pregleda akademske i sive literature te komplementarne analize unosa u bazi podataka EUvsDisinfo – studija identificira četiri glavna narativa koji se mogu pripisati neeuropskim akterima ili koje isti aktivno promoviraju: 1) suprotstavljanje rodnoj ideologiji i zaštita Božanskog poretka, 2) heteroaktivizam i zaštita prava „prirodne“ obitelji, 3) LGBT+ prava kao zapadni kolonijalizam i 4) LGBT+ prava kao prijetnja pravima djece. Iako snažna zaštita slobode govora u EU-u predstavlja izazov kad je u pitanju suzbijanje netočnih informacija i dezinformacija koje ne spadaju u okvire zakonodavstva o govoru mržnje, ovaj rad tvrdi da bi istraživanje sljedećih protumjera moglo biti vrijedno truda: 1) harmonizacija europskih pravnih okvira, 2) poman financijski nadzor i 3) pojačano automatsko otkrivanje, uređivačke politike i označavanje zajednice, kao i sposobnost za sustavno otklanjanje netočnih informacija i dezinformacija usmjerenih na LGBT+ osobe u digitalnim prostorima Europe.

Au cœur de la Stratégie nationale de recherche (SNR) lancée en 2014, les discours sur l’exploration apparaissent comme une ressource symbolique importante pour la légitimation des politiques publiques de la recherche. L’objectif de cette contribution est d’analyser les stratégies de communication des institutions au regard des enjeux idéologiques entourant la notion d’exploration. En analysant dans un premier temps quatre communications produites au moment de la mise en place de la SNR et du quatrième Programme d’investissements d’avenir, nous cherchons à dégager ce qui, dans la communication publique, se rapporte à un référentiel de l’exploration. Puis, il s’agira de dresser une cartographie des acteurs institutionnels en fonction de leur positionnement communicationnel vis-à-vis de l’exploration, en mettant en évidence que ceux-ci s’appuient sur une réactualisation de l’idéologie du progrès. At the heart of the National research strategy (SNR) launched in 2014 in France, speeches on exploration seem to be important symbolic resources for the science public policies legitimation. The aim of this article is to analyze the communication strategies of institutions in view of the ideological concerns surrounding the notion of exploration. First, by analyzing four communications produced at the launch of the SNR and the fourth “Programme d’investissements d’avenir”, this contribution intends to highlight what, in the public communication, can be related to a cognitive framework of exploration. Then, it will be about mapping the institutional actors according to their communicative positioning towards exploration, highlighting that they rely on an updated ideology of progress.

Pour conserver leur statut sur les réseaux sociaux numériques, les influenceuses « beauté » orientent principalement leur activité vers le maintien et l’accroissement de leur prestige en ligne. S’inscrivant dans le cadre de la sociologie configurationnelle de Norbert Elias, l’étude précise la manière dont elles construisent ce prestige au sein d’une configuration particulière : le réseau social Instagram. Il s’agit de comprendre comment les enquêtées gèrent leur exposition corporelle et esthétique. Loin d’une diffusion unilatérale des normes de beauté qu’elles tentent et espèrent incarner, les influenceuses sont soumises à des contraintes normatives fortes liées à leur position au cœur de multiples interdépendances avec les marques, leurs abonnés, leur agence, la plateforme ciblée par l’enquête ici, mais aussi avec leurs homologues sur les réseaux sociaux. In order to maintain their status on digital social networks, beauty influencers mainly orient their activity towards maintaining and increasing their online prestige. In line with Norbert Elias' configurational sociology, our study describes how they build this prestige within a particular configuration: the social network Instagram. The aim is to understand how the respondents manage their exposure in terms of aesthetics and appearance. Far from a unilateral diffusion of the beauty norms they embody, the female influencers are shackled by strong normative constraints linked to their position at the heart of multiple interdependencies with brands, their followers, their agency, the platform targeted by the survey here, and their peers.

Depuis quelques années, la fréquentation juvénile des espaces communicationnels en ligne s’accompagne de vérifications de présence toujours plus diversifiées et intrusives, telles que l’heure de la dernière connexion, l’ouverture ou non d’un contenu ou le fait d’être en train de rédiger une réponse. La SnapMap, issue de l’application Snapchat, s’impose aujourd’hui comme une illustration significative de cette logique de surveillance, en permettant aux jeunes d’afficher en temps réel leur position géographique. Cette contribution empirique, qui s’appuie sur une méthodologie qualitative (27 entretiens semi-directifs), rend compte des appropriations, détournements et enjeux de ce dispositif sociotechnique particulièrement bavard sur la présence et l’activité, en ligne comme hors ligne, des pairs adolescents. Il ressort que si elle peut être utilisée par simple curiosité ou servir des stratégies de regroupement ou d’évitement, la SnapMap reste surtout un révélateur de vérité dans le cas de fortes amitiés ou de relations sentimentales. Elle apparaît aussi comme un espace résolument codifié : la déconnexion volontaire à l’outil entraîne la nécessité d’une justification et le manque de maîtrise dans le partage de sa localisation y est socialement sanctionné. For the past few years, young people's use of online communication spaces has been accompanied by increasingly diversified and intrusive presence checks, such as the time of the last connection, whether or not a piece of content has been opened, or whether or not a reply is being written. The SnapMap, a product of the Snapchat application, is today the most obvious illustration of this surveillance logic, allowing young people to display their geographical position in real time. This empirical contribution, which is based on a qualitative methodology (27 semi-directive interviews), takes into account the appropriations, detour and stakes of this particularly chatty socio-technical device on the presence and activity, both online and offline, of adolescent peers. It emerges that if it can be used out of simple curiosity or to serve grouping or avoidance strategies, the SnapMap remains above all a revelation of truth in the case of strong friendships or sentimental relationships. It also appears to be a deeply codified space: voluntary disconnection from the tool leads to the need for a justification and the lack of control in sharing one's location is socially sanctioned.

Recalling details from an experienced event can sometimes exacerbate eyewitnesses' susceptibility to subsequent misinformation. This finding, known as retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES), can be eliminated when participants are warned about possible inaccuracies in the misinformation source (Thomas et al., 2010). In three experiments, we investigated whether this warning benefit persists across delays. When the warning was issued shortly after participants were exposed to misinformation, it inoculated participant witnesses against RES, regardless of whether the final memory test occurred immediately or 48 hr after the warning. However, the warning lost its effectiveness when it was delivered 48 hr after participants were exposed to misinformation. These results applied to both recognition memory and the confidence-accuracy relationship. We considered these data from the perspective of temporal distinctiveness, and we argue that a warning serves a similar function to a forget cue in the directed forgetting paradigm. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Cette contribution propose une étude de la métaphore de la frontière de la science aux États-Unis depuis la fin du xixe siècle. Elle montre que l’idée du scientifique en tant qu’homme de la frontière (frontiersman) est la résultante de plusieurs textes fondateurs se traduisant par divers imaginaires, en particulier celui d’un territoire sans limites où les découvertes se convertissent en gains économiques assurant le progrès matériel. L’auteure expose ainsi en particulier la thèse de Frederick Jackson Turner sur la frontière, une thèse présentée en 1893 qui a poussé les Américains à chercher un nouveau moyen d’expression métaphorique pour l’esprit pionnier, texte fondateur qui sera suivi d’autres du même auteur et de ses commentateurs au cours des trois premières décennies du xxe siècle. Elle développe également comment la frontière est devenue une métaphore directrice de la politique scientifique des États-Unis en 1945 avec le rapport gouvernemental Science, la frontière sans limites de Vannevar Bush. Ainsi, lors de la Convention nationale démocrate de 1960 et le célèbre discours de John F. Kennedy, la métaphore de la frontière de la science était-elle déjà ancrée dans l’imaginaire du grand public, influençant les prises de décision concernant les priorités de la recherche scientifique et constituant un moyen de persuasion dans l’élaboration du discours public sur la science. This article proposes an analysis of the metaphor of the frontier of science in the United States since the end of the nineteenth century. It shows that the conception of the scientist as frontiersman is the result of several founding texts producing various imaginaries, in particular that of an endless site for discoveries that could be turned to economic gain and thus ensure material progress. In particular, Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 thesis on the frontier, an argument that created an exigence for Americans to seek a new metaphoric outlet for the spirit of the frontiersman, this thesis followed by others by the same author and his commentators in the first three decades of the 20th century. As a result of this argument, the frontier became a guiding metaphor for U.S. science policy in 1945 with Vannevar Bush’s government report Science—The Endless Frontier. Thus, by the time of the 1960 Democratic National Convention and John F. Kennedy’s famous speech, the frontier of science metaphor had already taken hold in the public imagination, influencing decision-making about scientific research priorities and an available means of persuasion in the invention of public discourse about science.

Data de publicació electrònica: 29 de novembre de 2022 Data suggests that the majority of citizens in various countries came across ‘fake news’ during the COVID-19 pandemic. We test the relationship between perceived prevalence of misinformation and people’s worries about COVID-19. In Study 1, analyses of a survey across 17 countries indicate a positive association: perceptions of high prevalence of misinformation are correlated with high worries about COVID-19. However, the relationship is weaker in countries with higher levels of case-fatality ratios, and independent from the actual amount of misinformation per country. Study 2 replicates the relationship using experimental data. Furthermore, Study 2 demonstrates the underlying mechanism, that is, perceived prevalence of misinformation fosters the belief that COVID-19 is spiralling out of control, which in turn, increases worries. Our findings suggest that perceived prevalence of misinformation can have significant psychological effects, even though audience members reject the information as being false.

This project examines the intersection of political constructs and epistemic motivations as they relate to belief in misinformation. How we value the origins of knowledge – through feelings and intuition or evidence and data – has important implications for our susceptibility to misinformation. This project explores how these epistemic motivations correlate with political ideology, party identification, and favorability towards President Trump, and how epistemic and political constructs predict belief in misinformation about COVID and the 2020 election. Results from a US national survey from Nov-Dec 2020 illustrate that Republicans, conservatives, and those favorable towards President Trump held greater misperceptions about COVID and the 2020 election. Additionally, epistemic motivations were associated with political preferences; Republicans and conservatives were more likely to reject evidence, and Trump supporters more likely to value feelings and intuition. Mediation analyses support the proposition that Trump favorability, Republicanism, and conservatism may help account for the relationships between epistemic motivations and misperceptions. Results are discussed in terms of the messaging strategies of right-wing populist movements, and the implications for democracy and public health.

Este artículo explora una serie de acciones reaccionarias digitales antifeministas conducidas por grupos misóginos, xenófobos, radicales antifeministas y/o partidos populistas de extrema derecha. Las principales estrategias de fascismo digital incluyen acciones de desinformación, como la manipulación de datos o la propagación de bulos sobre cuestiones de género y personajes públicos femeninos; acciones que generan un clima hostil y de confrontación, como el troleo en los debates de forma intencional, la introducción de discursos polarizados o el cultivo de discursos de odio en foros misóginos cuasi cerrados; acciones de acoso cibernético o acoso de género online, como insultos y amenazas dirigidos contra las mujeres o ataques contra webs, perfiles o servidores que producen contenido feminista, entre otras. Finalmente, se recogen una serie de iniciativas y estrategias promovidas por colectivos e instituciones para frenar el avance del fascismo digital y promover una Internet segura y libre para todas. This article explores various reactionary antifeminist digital actions carried out by misogynistic and xenophobic groups, radical antifeminists, and right-wing populists. The analysis found that key digital fascism strategies included misinformation campaigns, such as data manipulation and the spread of hoaxes related to gender issues and female public figures; the creation of a hostile and confrontational climate through the intentional trolling of debates, the introduction of polarized speech and the cultivation of hate speech in quasi-closed misogynistic forums; cyber harassment or online gender harassment through insults and threats directed against women and attacks against websites, personal online profiles or servers that produce feminist content, among others. The article also considers a series of initiatives and strategies promoted by groups and institutions to stop the advance of digital fascism and to promote a safe and free Internet for all.

Due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of infected cases, the international community has been confronted with one of the most urgent health crises in recent decades. With the COVID-19 pandemic, we confronted a new phenomenon known as an "Infodemic" or "epidemic of misleading information" regarding COVID-19. Presently, a large amount of unsubstantiated material on various elements of the COVID-19 disease, disease control and prevention techniques and its effects is being distributed via social media, news agencies and television networks. Due to their accessibility, social networks are increasingly becoming an integral part of our lives. They provide avenues where anybody can convey their ideas and post information without impeding or regulating their publishing validation. As a consequence, it facilitates the spread of "Fake News," material that is deliberately false. Because of the amount of social media users and the volume of followers, fake social media news could have major adverse social repercussions. Misinformation and disinformation can have detrimental effects on people's mental and physical health, increase stigma, jeopardize valuable health gains, and result in poor adherence to public health measures, hence reducing their efficiency and jeopardizing their ability to manage the pandemic. Misinformation can result in death. Without trust and accurate information, diagnostic tests go unutilized, immunization campaigns (or initiatives to enhance effectiveness of vaccines) fall short of their goals, and the virus thrives. What's more, disinformation is creating a rift in public debate on COVID-19-related issues, intensifying hate speech, increasing the chances of conflict, violent acts, and violations of human rights, and jeopardizing long-term prospects for advancing social cohesion, human rights, and democracy.

PurposeMisinformation is a significant phenomenon in today's world: the purpose of this paper is to explore the motivations behind the creation and use of misinformation.Design/methodology/approachA literature review was undertaken, covering the English and Russian language sources. Content analysis was used to identify the different kinds of motivation relating to the stages of creating and communicating misinformation. The authors applied Schutz's analysis of motivational types.FindingsThe main types of motivation for creating and facilitating misinformation were identified as “in-order-to motivations”, i.e. seeking to bring about some desired state, whereas the motivations for using and, to a significant extent, sharing misinformation were “because” motivations, i.e. rooted in the individual's personal history.Originality/valueThe general model of the motivations underlying misinformation is original as is the application of Schutz's typification of motivations to the different stages in the creation, dissemination and use of misinformation.

The rise of “fake news” has become a major concern for social media platforms. In response, Facebook has proposed and tested the idea of users flagging and rating news articles and sources, much akin to how consumers rate products and services on the Internet. One obvious challenge with this crowdsourced rating approach is whether the users really know enough to rate news articles and sources. Perhaps, a side benefit of asking users to evaluate an article—and asking about their personal experience with the event described in the article—is making them realize that they do not know enough about the event to make an accurate judgment, thus pushing them to become more skeptical. We asked 68 social media users to assess the believability of 42 social media headlines. We found that, while users were generally more likely to believe articles that agreed with their point of view, asking users to rate pushed them to think more critically about the truthfulness of the articles. Moreover, once users had been asked to rate some articles, they remained critical of other articles as well, even without the rating prompt. Overall, our findings suggest that asking users to evaluate the truthfulness of articles may not only produce rating information that can be a useful reference at a later point in time but also have an immediate benefit of alerting users to think more critically about all articles they see.

Research aimed at finding solutions to the problem of the diffusion of distinct forms of non-genuine information online across multiple domains has attracted growing interest in recent years, from opinion spam to fake news detection. Currently, partly due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak and the subsequent proliferation of unfounded claims and highly biased content, attention has focused on developing solutions that can automatically assess the genuineness of health information. Most of these approaches, applied both to Web pages and social media content, rely primarily on the use of handcrafted features in conjunction with Machine Learning. In this article, instead, we propose a health misinformation detection model that exploits as features the embedded representations of some structural and content characteristics of Web pages, which are obtained using an embedding model pre-trained on medical data. Such features are employed within a deep learning classification model, which categorizes genuine health information versus health misinformation. The purpose of this article is therefore to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed model, namely Vec4Cred, with respect to the problem considered. This model represents an evolution of a previous one, with respect to which new features and architectural choices have been considered and illustrated in this work.

We aim to articulate the relationships between people's behavior and their vaccination representations according to social characteristics and the role of social media. We conducted our research using questionnaires and content analysis of magazines. Our work underscores how the interconnection among representations, people, experience, doubts about science, and many reiterated ambivalent messages of the media, trigger contradictory positions in most cases. Compared to this, a sociological approach may be useful for identifying the social conditions under which skeptical attitudes towards vaccinations emerge.

False denials are sometimes used to cope with traumatic experiences. We examined whether false denials can affect true and false memory production for a traumatic event and conversations surrounding the trauma. One hundred and twenty-six participants watched a trauma analogue video of a car crash before being randomly asked in a discussion with the experimenter to (1) respond honestly or (2) falsely deny that certain details happened in the video. After one week, all participants received misinformation about the discussion with the experimenter and the car crash. Finally, all participants were instructed to respond truthfully in a source memory task. Participants who falsely denied information during the first session were statistically significantly more prone than honest participants to omit details they denied and to report misinformation about what was discussed in the first session. Our work suggests that false denials of a traumatic experience might lead to both forgetting and increased false memory levels for earlier conversations about the event. ispartof: Memory vol:30 issue:9 pages:1158-1171 ispartof: location:England status: Published online

Background Patients are often exposed to contradictory information about pharmaceutical products from various types of advertising. For example, direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) tend to emphasize a drug's benefits, while drug injury advertising emphasizes the worst side effects. Regarding DTCA as a drug information source, many researchers in pharmacy field focus on investigating the misinformation in DTCA and corrective advertising. However, no prior research has examined the effects of such contradictory advertising messages on patients' prescription medicine-related beliefs and medication adherence. This is a significant gap in the research literature on pharmaceutical advertising effects and medication adherence. Objective This is aimed to examine how exposure to DTCA and drug injury advertising would influence patients’ chronic accessibility of drug-related beliefs and their medication adherence behavior. Methods An online survey was conducted with a sample of 213 patients taking prescription blood thinners. Results The findings from this study did not support the predicted relationship between exposure to DTCA and consumers' drug-related belief accessibility or their medication adherence. However, this study found a significant interaction effect of exposure to DTCA and exposure to drug injury ads on patients’ medication adherence. The analysis results demonstrate that, for those who were exposed to drug injury ads, a significant negative relationship emerged between DTCA exposure and medication adherence. Conclusion This study provides important empirical evidence of a negative interaction effect of exposure to DTCA and drug injury ads on patients' medication adherence, which demonstrates that the influence of DTCA and drug injury ad exposures on patients' medication adherence is not independent, separate process but an interactive process. A communication campaign with corrective advertising could alleviate the negative interaction effect of exposure to contradictory information from different types of pharmaceutical ads on patients’ medication adherence.

[Resumen] El presente estudio examina la actividad, visibilidad e interacción de diferentes cuentas relacionadas con la diabetes en Facebook, Twitter, Instagram y YouTube. Para ello, a través de los indicadores que ofrece la herramienta Fanpage Karma, se complementa el análisis cuantitativo con una serie de variables cualitativas -tono, formatos predominantes y usos de los mensajes- y su impacto en las redes sociales mencionadas.Como principales conclusiones, se observa que las organizaciones y las cuentas de influencers analizadas no logran todo el rendimiento posible a sus canales digitales y el formato más utilizado es el de textos largos, que no siempre genera mayor interacción. [Abstract] This article examines the activity, visibility and interaction of different diabetes-related accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The study combines a quantitative analysis of the indicators provided by the Fanpage Karma tool and a series of quantitative variables (tone, predominant formats, uses of messages) and their impact on the aforementioned social networks. The main conclusions are that the digital channels of the organisations and influencer accounts analysed are not being used to their full potential and that the most commonly used formats is long texts, which do not always generate high levels of interaction.

Las predicciones del informe Gartner (2017) para el año 2022 auguran que la mayoría de los ciudadanos de países desarrollados consumirán más bulos, información engañosa o inexacta que información verídica. Cada vez resulta más evidente que la desinformación se ha convertido en un importante problema global (European Commission, 2021), pero también lo es la misinformación, pues contribuye, en igual medida, a nutrir el clima de infodemia (WHO, 2020) en la sociedad. Por ello, bajo este marco social, la principal labor de las universidades y, más concretamente, de las facultades de Ciencias de la Información y de la Comunicación debe ser alfabetizar a los estudiantes sobre los peligros de estos desórdenes informativos (Wardle y Derakhshan, 2017) y entrenar las competencias de los alumnos para que puedan combatir la desinformación y la misinformación de forma autónoma. Con base en esta premisa, esta investigación presenta una iniciativa académica, que está vinculada a un proyecto de innovación docente, con la que se busca ejercitar las competencias de verificación de los alumnos del Grado de Comunicación en Sevilla y en Córdoba. Para ello, a través de la metodología de Aprendizaje Basado en Proyectos (ABP), se ha diseñado y creado una plataforma de verificación, denominada Desinfaketion Hub, donde los alumnos de la asignatura de Opinión pública - 4º curso del Grado de Comunicación- y de Periodismo digital - 3º curso de Comunicación- difunden y publican, semanalmente, noticias alfabetizadores y desmentidos de los bulos que detectan en medios locales o autonómicos y en redes sociales. Les prediccions de l'informe Gartner (2017) per a l'any 2022 auguren que la majoria dels ciutadans de països desenvolupats consumiran més notícies falses, informació enganyosa o inexacta que informació verídica. Cada vegada resulta més evident que la desinformació s'ha convertit en un important problema global (European Commission, 2021), però també ho és la informació errònia, perquè contribueix, de la mateixa manera, a nodrir el clima d'infodèmia (WHO, 2020) en la societat. Per això, sota aquest marc social, la principal tasca de les universitats i, més concretament, de les facultats de Ciències de la Informació i de la Comunicació ha de ser alfabetitzar els estudiants sobre els perills d'aquests desordres informatius (Wardle i Derakhshan, 2017) i entrenar les competències dels alumnes perquè puguin combatre la desinformació i la informació errònia autònomament. Amb base en aquesta premissa, aquesta recerca presenta una iniciativa acadèmica, que està vinculada a un projecte d'innovació docent, amb la qual es busca exercitar les competències de verificació dels alumnes del Grau de Comunicació a Sevilla i a Còrdova. Per fer-ho, a través de la metodologia d'Aprenentatge Basat en Projectes (ABP), s'ha dissenyat i creat una plataforma de verificació, denominada Desinfaketion Hub, on els alumnes de l'assignatura d'Opinió Pública - 4t curs del Grau de Comunicació- i de Periodisme Digital - 3r curs de Comunicació- difonen i publiquen, setmanalment, notícies alfabetitzadores i desmentiments de les notícies enganyoses que detecten als mitjans locals o autonòmics i a les xarxes socials. The Gartner report (2017) predicted that in 2022 most citizens in developed countries will consume more hoaxes and misleading or inaccurate information than true information. It is becoming increasingly clear that disinformation has become a major global problem (European Commission, 2021), but so is misinformation, since it contributes, in equal measure, to nurturing the infodemic climate (WHO, 2020) in society. Given this social framework, therefore, the main task of universities, and more specifically of Faculties of Information and Communication Sciences, should be to educate students on the dangers of these informational disorders (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017) and to train students' skills so they can fight disinformation and misinformation autonomously. Based on this premise, this study presents an academic initiative linked to an innovative teaching project that aims to test the verification skills of undergraduate Communications students in Seville and Córdoba. To do this, through the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology, a verification platform has been designed and created, called Desinfaketion Hub, in which students taking courses in either digital journalism or public opinion (in the third and fourth year of the Communications degree, respectively) publish literacy news and denials of hoaxes each week that they detect in local or regional media and on social networks. Anàlisi is a science journal published by the Journalism and Communication Sciences Department of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). The journal has been published by the UAB Journalism Department since 1980. Anàlisi publishes science articles in the fields of the communication sciences: journalism, advertising and public relations, audiovisual communication, internet, multimedia and similar areas, always from the social and cultural viewpoint and following the theoretical and methodological approaches of the media studies disciplines. Anàlisi will especially value articles from competitive research projects, with a clear articulation of theory and methodology, a well-defined and up-to-date theoretical framework, and proposed as a significant contribution to their subject area and field.

With the advent of social media, conspiracy theories became integrated into salient political debates, yet the scope of their implications on citizens' political behavior remains unclear. Using an online experiment among US subjects, we show that conspiracy theories decrease voters' trust in political institutions, such as mainstream parties and courts, as well as information providers. Subjects were exposed to conspiracy theories that are completely unrelated to American domestic politics, which further underscores the danger of such narratives. Results, however, suggest that voters do not weigh unrelated conspiracies in their evaluation of politicians' performance. Overall, our findings illustrate that an informational environment permeated by conspiracy theories could impede the functioning of democracy by eroding trust in its institutions, but that voters' capacity to keep politicians accountable is resilient to unrelated information.

The ability to find credible information online is necessary for informed civic engagement in the 21st century. This need is particularly acute for young people, who often turn to the Internet to learn about social and political issues. Preparing students to evaluate online content, particularly as it concerns social and political issues, aligns with broader efforts to reinvigorate the civic mission of colleges and universities. We analyzed how college students (n = 263) evaluated online sources about public policy issues. Results showed that a majority employed ineffective strategies for evaluating digital information. Many of the strategies students used mirrored advice found on college and university websites. These findings suggest a need to reconsider post-secondary approaches to teaching online evaluation strategies.

The article analyzes one of the crucial junctures in the fight against climate change, namely its relationship with the media and disinformation. A dense network of actors is involved in the creation and dissemination of disinformation that has long been supported by the economic interests of the oil and coal industries and is now fully embedded in the post-truth climate. The absence of direct experience and perception of the effects of climate change has emphasized the public’s cognitive dependence on the media, which, however, have lagged far behind and manifested inadequacy with respect to the emergence of the global warming issue. In dialogue with a vast scientific literature and Pew research data, the paper analyzes the widespread post-factual and social attitudes ranging from skepticism to outright militant denialism.In this context, the article proposes and signals the need for a healthy epistemic environment, understood as an indispensable index of the quality of democracy and of critical subjectivity as a preconditions for any positive action against countering climate change.

A human decellularized adipose tissue extracellular matrix hydrogel could support adipose-derived stem cell differentiation into mature adipocytes, providing controlled fat growth. This hydrogel has the potential to improve or even replace conventional fat grafting procedures, serving as a cosmetic filler to augment breast reconstruction post-mastectomy. / Especially since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, individuals and organizations with claims to medical expertise have cultivated mass followings among Americans, using their influence to lend credibility to medical misinformation, thereby exacerbating distrust in consensus public health guidance.

Misinformation is false or inaccurate information that is deliberately created to deceive a party. For my capstone project, I reflected upon my internship experience at Capital One as a technology intern. At Capital One, I worked with cloud computing technology to solve a company-wide security issue. With the knowledge that I gained from my internship; I plan to outline a scalable solution within Amazon Web Services (AWS) to combat misinformation that propagates on social media. For my STS research paper, I analyzed the 2016 presidential election and COVID-19 to determine how misinformation affected society and present solutions to mitigate the wicked problem. My STS research paper investigates the social hierarchy formed between actors during the two case studies using Actor-Network theory and Wicked Problem framing. Furthermore, the paper highlights what needs to happen to prevent the misinformation from having a drastic effect in the future.

The internet and social media have never been more useful and relevant in society before, and with recent developments into hosting technology that boosts usage, it becomes ever-so important to analyze the consequences of misinformation that plagues so many platforms and users. Serverless architecture is a new paradigm in how we can approach servers and running applications and programs for various corporations and individuals that improves how we host and maintain things like websites and social media applications. Capital One developer teams were switching to serverless hosting to improve things like developer time, lower costs, and more. However, as we continue to improve the hosting architecture over the internet, we also need to take an analysis on the many downsides. One such is misinformation, that was rampant during the COVID-19 pandemic which saw social media platforms scrambling to try to combat it. This thesis seeks to analyze whether social media platforms’ content moderation policies were effective or not through analyzing prior research and a case study. The coupling between the two topics is loose but follows the general idea that serverless hosting will result in social media platforms being able to support more users, which in turn thus generates a bigger need to moderate content for the bigger user base. The technical research report describes working at Capital One in the summer of 2022 as a Software Engineering Intern. The team was focused on developing internal applications for other Capital One employees. The goal of the project was to switch some existing applications to serverless hosting using services like Amazon Web Services, which provides microservices like Lambda, EC2, ECS, S3, and more. The project can be divided into two parts, where the first part was moving some frontends to S3 for static hosting, a fast, secure, and easy way to host user interfaces, and the second was moving some backends to Lambda for event driven serverless computation. The benefits of doing such were lower developer costs, where the manager reported that they were going to save around 90% of the original cost of hosting, as well as reduced developer time since serverless hosting requires easier maintenance and rehydration. Overall, serverless hosting was a success and showcased immediate benefits of this architecture. The STS report focuses on the question of whether content moderation policies taken by social media platforms like Twitter were effective in curbing the spread of misinformation. This will be achieved through a case study with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican congressional member who has been previously banned on Twitter for violating their COVID-19 misinformation policy. It was concluded that in the case of Representative Greene, Twitter’s misinformation policies were not effective in stopping the spread of misinformation. By tracking various metrics like follower count and Tweet account, it was observed that Representative Greene’s misinformation campaign did not falter in any way. In fact, one could argue that this banning gave her a bigger publicity and following. If this problem of content moderation and COVID-19 misinformation is analyzed through the lens of Pacey’s Triangle, engineers can better understand all the factors at play that influence these complicated relationships between cultural, technological, and organizational aspects. Understanding how culture plays a role in social media usage and general internet technology is important as developers and engineers to create tools that generate toxic side-effects like misinformation. Engineers should see how deeply rooted mistrust in medical authority and government manifests itself onto the internet, which thus makes the internet and social media platforms non-value neutral. Technology does not exist in and of itself and is influenced by various societal implications. With all this in mind, engineers can better approve this problem of content moderation and misinformation on social media platforms. Approaching this problem requires a deeper understanding of root problems in society that cause misinformation to manifest itself on the internet in the first place, like a historical distrust in government and medical authority. With this consideration in mind, engineers can continue to improve things like serverless architecture while creating a technology that is fully aware of the cultural and organizational contexts that exist in a real-world setting.

Misinformation and disinformation are much used terms, but the definitions are either tautological (misinformation is something “misleading”) or non-testable (disinformation is intentionally misleading), which limits scientific analytical studies and algorithmic identification (by researchers, and importantly by citizens), despite the obvious importance to society. This short paper describes how a ctageory system of errors in the knowledge process can be used analytically (or algorithmically) to estimate the likelihood of disinformation, defined as a bias in the knowledge process, as measured by a non-random distribution of errors favoring one of two outcomes. The proposed method will ideally enable analytical studies of misinformation, disinformation, and bias in a more complete, balanced, and scientific way than previous studies that have lacked operational definitions as required for analytical research.

The coronavirus pandemic has drastically impacted many groups that have been socially and economically marginalized such as Hispanics/Latinos in the United States (U.S.). Our aim was to understand how bonding social capital, bridging social capital, and trust played a role in Hispanics/Latinos over the course of the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as explore the negative consequences of social capital. We performed focus group discussions via Zoom (n = 25) between January and December 2021 with Hispanics/Latinos from Baltimore, MD, Washington, DC, and New York City, NY. Our findings suggest that Hispanics/Latinos experienced bridging and bonding social capital. Of particular interest was how social capital permeated the Hispanic/Latino community’s socioeconomic challenges during the pandemic. The focus groups revealed the importance of trust and its role in vaccine hesitancy. Additionally, the focus groups discussed the dark side of social capital including caregiving burden and spread of misinformation. We also identified the emergent theme of racism. Future public health interventions should invest in social capital, especially for groups that have been historically marginalized or made vulnerable, and consider the promotion of bonding and bridging social capital and trust. When prospective disasters occur, public health interventions should support vulnerable populations that are overwhelmed with caregiving burden and are susceptible to misinformation.

Emotions play a crucial role in information processing. Prior studies indicate that high-arousal emotions may elicit rapid, intuitive thinking, tricking people into judging misinformation as truthful. Yet, few studies have distinguished prior affective state from emotional reactions to false news, both of which may influence belief in falsehoods in different ways. Replicating and extending Martel et al. (2020), we conducted a pre-registered online survey in Austria (N = 422), investigating associations of emotions and discernment of false and real news related to COVID-19. We found no associations of affective state with discernment, but different emotional responses to false and real news — namely, more anger and less joy for false news. A curvilinear relationship of anger with discernment showed that both participants who were good and bad at discerning real from false news responded with anger. The automated analysis of 5,613 open-ended textual responses suggested that anger may have arisen for different reasons in these different groups. It seemed to also arise when people recognized the false news as such, not only when people accepted it. We conclude that studies need to distinguish between prior affective state and emotional response to misinformation and consider individuals’ prior beliefs as determinants of emotions.

Objetivo:Descrever as vertentes que contribuíram para o formação do Projeto de Extensão VacinAção, do qual, detém a intencionalidade da retomada da cobertura vacinal, propondo-se tirar suas dúvidas acerca do tema, haja vista a crescente disseminação de notícias falsas que se alastrou na pandemia daCOVID-19.Método:Sucedeu-se primeiramente um estudo sobre as consequências dos movimentos anti-vacinas. Diante dessa problemática, obteve-se a ideia de disseminar informações científicas compactuada a uma linguagem acessível para a população leiga, sendo implementada virtualmente e presencialmente. Foi criado um perfil noInstagrama fim de disponibilizar conteúdos, divulgar ações e consequentemente, atingir um número maior de participantes impactados pelo Projeto. Atualmente, realizam-se visitas em escolas, partilhando informações através de conversas e dinâmicas.Resultados:O Projeto obteve 182 seguidores em seu perfil oficial do instagram, além de 245 visualizações em sua primeiralivetransmitida através do perfil da Faculdades Pequeno Príncipe. Nesse viés, a segundalivealcançou 206 perfis diferentes. Além disso, em agosto de 2022, os extensionistas elaboraram um folder mediante aos conhecimentos adquiridos diante das aulas assistidas, abrangendo informações importantes sobre a vacinação.Considerações Finais:As ações efetuadas são de extrema relevância tanto para o âmbito acadêmico, desenvolvendo o futuro profissional e o capacitando com aulas acerca das especificidades vacinais, quanto seu impacto para a sociedade, promovendo a educação em saúde da população e fomentando-os de informações pertinentes e científicas, dado que a vacinação está além das escolhas pessoais e da decisão individual, refletindo-se em ato de cidadania.&nbsp

As scientists, the terminology we choose influences our thinking as it carries our messages to colleagues and the public. In the face of pressure to turn science into clickbait, maintaining precision in the language we use is critical to dispel misinformation and, more broadly, to enable scientific progress.

Focusing on Turkey, this article analyzes the role of polarization on news users’ perception of misinformation and mistrust in the news on social media. Turkey is one of the countries where citizens complain most about misinformation on the internet. The citizens’ trust in news institutions is also in continuous decline. Furthermore, both Turkish society and its media landscape are politically highly polarized. Focusing on Turkey’s highly polarized environment, the article aims to analyze how political polarization influences the users’ trust in the news and their perceptions about misinformation on social media. The study is based on multi-method research, including focus groups, media diaries, and interviews with people of different ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. The article firstly demonstrates different strategies that the users develop to validate information, including searching for any suspicious information on search engines, looking at the comments below the post, and looking at other news media, especially television. Secondly, we will discuss how more affective mechanisms of news assessment come into prominence while evaluating political news. Although our participants are self-aware and critical about their partisan attitudes in news consumption and evaluation, they also reveal media sources to which they feel politically closer. We propose the concept of “skeptical inertia” to refer to this self-critical yet passive position of the users in the face of the polarized news environment in Turkey.

Background: Deaths due to opioid overdose continue to rise in the United States. Despite availability of effective treatment for opioid use disorder, uptake is low among those who misuse opioids. Methods: This paper explores the role of misconception, stigma, and misinformation in influencing decisions to initiate medications for opioid use disorder among patients and providers. Conclusion: Misinformation about opioids has been prevalent among future healthcare providers and first responders as well as pharmaceutical companies, which may have implications for treatment. Among individuals with opioid use disorder, treatment uptake and adherence have been negatively affected by misconceptions about treatment efficacy and side effects, as well as stigma. We discuss the role of social media, education, and the community, in mitigating misinformation and addressing misconceptions about opioids and treatment options.

People may cling to false facts even in the face of updated and correct information. The present study confronted misconceptions about the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and a novel, fictitious Zika vaccine. Two experiments are reported, examining misconceptions as motivated by a poor risk understanding (Experiment 1, N = 130) or the exposure to conspiracy theories (Experiment 2, N = 130). Each experiment featured a Misinformation condition, wherein participants were presented with fictitious stories containing some misinformation (Experiment 1) and rumours focused on conspiracy theories (Experiment 2) that were later retracted by public health experts and a No misinformation condition, containing no reference to misinformation and rumours. Across experiments, participants were more hesitant towards vaccines when exposed to stories including vaccine misinformation. Notwithstanding, our results suggest a positive impact of a trusted source communicating the scientific consensus about vaccines. Zika virus represents a particular case showing how missing information can easily evolve into misinformation. Implications for effective dissemination of information are discussed.

Hvordan interagerer danskere med misinformation på de sociale medier? Hvilke udsagn og argumenter anvender de til at sprede og imødegå misinformation? Vi undersøger digital misinformation under Covid-19-pandemien og analyserer, hvordan borgere henholdsvis spreder og afviser misinformation om mundbind på Twitter i Danmark. Vores undersøgelse viser, at omfanget af misinformation er begrænset, men at forkerte påstande i mindre grad imødegås gennem korrektion eller dialog. I stedet anvender brugere, der afviser misinformationen, ofte ironi og nedladende kommentarer til at distancere sig fra dem, der spreder misinformation, og hvis bekymringer således ikke bliver taget alvorligt. Resultaterne rejser spørgsmål om brugernes evner til at korrigere misinformation online og peger på vigtigheden af gruppetilhørsforhold og social status ikke blot i spredning, men også i afvisning af digital misinformation.

In this paper, we present a resource allocation mechanism for the problem of incentivizing filtering among a finite number of strategic social media platforms. We consider the presence of a strategic government and private knowledge of how misinformation affects the users of the social media platforms. Our proposed mechanism incentivizes social media platforms to filter misleading information efficiently, and thus indirectly prevents the spread of fake news. In particular, we design an economically inspired mechanism that strongly implements all generalized Nash equilibria for efficient filtering of misleading information in the induced game. We show that our mechanism is individually rational, budget balanced, while it has at least one equilibrium. Finally, we show that for quasi-concave utilities and constraints, our mechanism admits a generalized Nash equilibrium and implements a Pareto efficient solution.

This study investigated polarization on Twitter related to the COVID-19 pandemic by examining tweets containing #Plandemic (suggests the pandemic is a hoax) or #StayHome (encourages compliance with health recommendations). Over 35,000 tweets from over 25,000 users were collected in April 2020 and examined using sentiment and social network analyses. Compared to #StayHome tweets, #Plandemic tweets came from a more tightly connected network, were higher in negative emotional content, and could be sub-divided into specific categories of misinformation and conspiracy theories. To evaluate the stability of users' COVID-related perspectives, the prevalence of pro- and anti-mask sentiment was measured in same users' tweets approximately four months later. Results revealed substantial stability over time, with 40% of #Plandemic users tweeting anti-mask hashtags compared to just 2% of #StayHome users. Findings demonstrate COVID-related polarization on Twitter and have implications for public health interventions to quell the propagation of misinformation.

This study’s purpose is to systematically review the literature to identify the most recent library practices against fake news. Previous findings showed most studies emphasize academic libraries practices and are mainly focused on information literacy instruction. This article updates prior research aiming to acknowledge the tangible practices of libraries, discuss their efficiency, and continue a categorization of those practices. It was performed a systematic literature review of the last 12 months (October 2020-September 2021) to retrieve the most recent library practices. After the extraction, with a final set of 17 documents, a multi-step qualitative analysis, and a categorization were developed. The current debate is still around information literacy strategies that intend to reiterate an authority-based source evaluation versus the challenge to recognize an emotional-based reaction to fake news in a post-truth world. The role of libraries is cornered in an instructional framework, while disinformation is pervasive in several information ecosystems. The role of libraries in a Post-truth society is still an open debate, yet there is almost a consensus that libraries should engage in partnerships and be part of a multidisciplinary approach., O objetivo deste estudo é rever sistematicamente a literatura para identificar as práticas mais recentes das bibliotecas contra as fake news. Resultados prévios mostraram que a maioria dos estudos enfatiza as práticas das bibliotecas do ensino superior e estão principalmente centrados na formação em literacia da informação. Este artigo atualiza uma investigação anterior com o objetivo de reconhecer as práticas tangíveis das bibliotecas, discutir a sua eficiência, e continuar uma categorização dessas práticas. Foi realizada uma revisão sistemática da literatura dos últimos 12 meses (Outubro 2020-Setembro 2021) para recuperar as práticas mais recentes das bibliotecas. Após a extração, com um conjunto final de 17 documentos, foi desenvolvida uma análise qualitativa em várias etapas e uma categorização. O debate atual continua em torno de estratégias de literacia da informação que pretendem reiterar uma avaliação das fontes baseada na autoridade versus o desafio de reconhecer uma reação emocional a notícias falsas num mundo de pós-verdade. O papel das bibliotecas está encurralado num quadro formativo, enquanto a desinformação invade vários ecossistemas de informação. O papel das bibliotecas na sociedade da pós-verdade é ainda um debate em aberto, mas existe quase um consenso de que as bibliotecas devem envolver-se em parcerias e fazer parte de uma abordagem multidisciplinar.

Although retractions significantly reduce the number of references people make to misinformation, retracted information nevertheless persists in memory, continuing to influence reasoning. One hundred and twenty-nine lay participants completed an adaptation on the traditional continued influence paradigm, which set out to identify whether it is possible to debunk a piece of common statistical misinformation: inappropriate causal inference based on a correlation. We hypothesized that participants in the correction condition would make fewer causal inferences (misinformation) and more correlational inferences (correction) than those in the no-correction condition. Additional secondary hypotheses were that the number of references made to the misinformation and correction would be moderated by the level of trust in science and scientists, and the amount of television that participants watch. Although the secondary hypotheses were not supported, the data strongly supported the primary hypotheses. This study provides evidence for the efficacy of corrections about misinformation where correlational evidence has been inappropriately reported as causal. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Background In April 2018, Tanzania introduced the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine nationally to 14-year-old girls, utilizing routine delivery strategies (i.e. vaccinating girls at health facilities and community outreach, including schools). We sought to assess awareness, feasibility, and acceptability of the HPV vaccination program among health workers and community-level stakeholders. Methods We conducted cross-sectional in-person surveys among health workers, school personnel, community leaders, and council leaders in 18 council areas across six regions of Tanzania in October–November 2019. Regions were purposively selected to provide demographic, geographic, and vaccination coverage variability; sub-regional levels used random or stratified random sampling. Surveys included questions on HPV vaccine training and knowledge, delivery strategy, target population, and vaccine and program acceptability. Descriptive analysis was completed for all variables stratified by respondent groups. Results Across the 18 councils, there were 461 respondents, including health workers (165), school personnel (135), community leaders (143), and council leaders (18). Over half of each respondent group (50–78%) attended a training or orientation on HPV vaccine. Almost 75% of the health workers and school personnel respondent groups, and less than half (45%) of community leaders correctly identified the target age group for HPV vaccine. Most (80%) of the health workers indicated HPV vaccination was available at health facilities and schools; most (79%) indicated that the majority of girls receive HPV vaccine in school. Approximately half (52%) of all respondents reported hearing misinformation about HPV vaccine, but 97% of all respondents indicated that HPV vaccine was either “very accepted” or “somewhat accepted” in their community. Conclusion The HPV vaccination program in Tanzania was well accepted by community stakeholders in 18 councils; adequate knowledge of HPV vaccine and the HPV vaccination program was demonstrated by health workers and school personnel. However, continued technical support for integration of HPV vaccination as a routine immunization activity and reinforcement of basic knowledge about HPV vaccine in specific community groups is needed. The Tanzania experience provides an example of how this vaccine can be integrated into routine immunization delivery strategies and can be a useful resource for countries planning to introduce HPV vaccine as well as informing global partners on how to best support to countries in operationalizing their HPV vaccine introduction plans.

People often find truth and meaning in claims that have no regard for truth or empirical evidence. We propose that one reason is that people value connecting and fitting in with others, motivating them to seek the common ground of communication and generate explanations for how claims might make sense. This increases the likelihood that people experience empty claims as truthful, meaningful, or even profound. Seven studies (N > 16,000 from the United States and China) support our prediction. People who score higher in collectivism (valuing connection and fitting in) are more likely to find fake news meaningful and believe in pseudoscience (Studies 1 to 3). China-U.S. cross-national comparisons show parallel effects. Relative to people from the United States, Chinese participants are more likely to see meaning in randomly generated vague claims (Study 4). People higher in collectivism are more likely to engage in meaning-making, generating explanations when faced with an empty claim, and having done so, are more likely to find meaning (Study 5). People who momentarily experience themselves as more collectivistic are more likely to see empty claims as meaningful (Study 6). People higher in collectivism are more likely to engage in meaning-making unless there is no common ground to seek (Study 7). We interpret our results as suggesting that conditions that trigger collectivism create fertile territory for the spread of empty claims, including fake news and misinformation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Examine predictors of social media use among a nationally representative sample of adults with children in the household.Data were collected from the Health Information National Trends (HINTS) Survey from 2017 to 2020 (N = 3559). Multivariate logistic regression models assessed the association between sociodemographic variables and social networking site (SNS) use, SNS use to share health information, participation in online forum or support groups for health issues and watching health-related videos on YouTube.Older adults and men were significantly less likely to use social media (p.05). Non-Hispanic African American (aOR: 1.83; 95%CI: 1.30-2.57), Hispanic (aOR: 2.16; 95%CI: 1.56-2.99), and Asian (aOR: 2.82; 95%CI: 1.67-4.75) adults were more likely to watch health-related videos on YouTube.Racial/ethnic minorities with children in the household were more likely to seek health information on YouTube, highlighting opportunities to disseminate culturally relevant, accurate messages on the platform. Effective health communication targeted to specific demographics can help counter misinformation and promote health behavior particularly during public health emergencies.Providers need to foster trust so that patients are comfortable to ask questions in addition to seeking information online. Providers can direct patients to credible resources to counter misinformation exposure and promote healthy behavior.

Eyewitnesses may be exposed to multiple, mutually contradictory pieces of misinformation. In the simplest case of double misinformation, an original detail is targeted by misinformation A and then by misinformation B, which contradicts A. In such situations, two separate mechanisms may produce opposite effects on eyewitness remembering: (1) multiple chances to be misled enhance the misinformation effect and (2) noticing contradictions between multiple pieces of misinformation undermines credibility and decreases the effect (all relative to the effect of a single piece of misinformation). Across three experiments, we found support for both of these effects and confirmed an important moderating factor in an item analysis: The first mechanism dominates at low levels of misinformation (encoding and subsequent) availability, and the second at high levels (as this facilitates noticing contradictions). This means that, ironically, more misinformation can be less effective (in terms of distorting eyewitness memory or factual knowledge) if it contradicts itself.

Discussion is more convincing than standard, unidirectional messaging, but its interactive nature makes it difficult to scale up. We created a chatbot to emulate the most important traits of discussion. A simple argument pointing out the existence of a scientific consensus on the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) already led to more positive attitudes towards GMOs, compared with a control message. Providing participants with good arguments rebutting the most common counterarguments against GMOs led to much more positive attitudes towards GMOs, whether the participants could immediately see all the arguments or could select the most relevant arguments in a chatbot. Participants holding the most negative attitudes displayed more attitude change in favour of GMOs. Participants updated their beliefs when presented with good arguments, but we found no evidence that an interactive chatbot proves more persuasive than a list of arguments and counterarguments.

Background The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need of social media as a medium for gathering health-related information. Simultaneously, a slew of false information, primarily about COVID-19’s origin, dissemination, prevention, treatment, and fatality surfaced, making it difficult to distinguish fake from genuine material. However, the possible effects on mental health and the extent to which this influences our decisions, particularly regarding vaccination, are unknown. Aim The purpose of this questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was to examine Lebanese University students’ perceptions of social media influence during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to measure the impact of misinformation on respondents’ mental health and vaccination decisions. Methods In total, 440 students took part and were asked to complete an online survey that included questions on social media trust, the “general health questionnaire index” (GHQ-12), and a scale measuring “attitude towards vaccination”. Results Our data demonstrated a low frequency of mental health disorders among Lebanese University students, which was correlated to frequent social media exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings suggested that students are more aware of misinformation and had lower rates of despair and anxiety than the general population. Furthermore, Facebook use was associated with worse attitude and behaviour towards vaccination (p = 0.001), but a better mental health. Twitter had the inverse effect (p = 0.002). Conclusion It is a necessity to use social media correctly in health-related topics, to push governments and platforms towards making decisions about false and invalidated posts.

Objective Social media has fundamentally changed how the world shares and receives information. This review offers a perspective for the practicing clinician regarding how patients are being influenced by their online interactions and considerations for proactively discussing medical decision making with patients. Data Sources Literature search of PubMed database and online published market research data surrounding social media use. Study Selections Peer-reviewed studies, Pew research data, and editorials in the English language were selected and reviewed. Results There has been a substantial increase in the breadth and depth of literature surrounding the use of social media by patients and medical professionals. Increased focus on how it contributes to medical decision making and patient-clinician interactions has occurred in recent years. The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has highlighted the various sources of misinformation and disinformation and how they impact care on many levels. Best practices have been established to assist medical professionals in developing an online presence to combat misinformation or address individual patients. Conclusion There is growing understanding and recognition of the myriad of ways in which social media is impacting health care. Health care professionals from all backgrounds need to increase their understanding of these complex interactions to best assist patients with their medical decision making.

Objective To investigate the quality of information related to glaucoma procedures found online using 2 different assessment tools. Design Cross-sectional survey of 100 web sites found via Google search engine. Methods The terms “peripheral iridotomy” and “trabeculectomy” along with synonymous keywords were inputted into Google's search engine. The first 50 functional websites for each term were assessed by 2 independent raters using the DISCERN instrument as well as a quality assessment tool by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Statistical analysis included an evaluation of intra-rater reproducibility and interclass correlation between the 2 scales. Main outcome measures (i) Quality of web site content based on DISCERN and JAMA scores, (ii) quality of web site based on categorization of web site (iii), intra-rater reproducibility of each scale, and (iv) interclass correlation between the 2 rating scales. Results Only 22% of the web sites for peripheral iridotomy and 34% of the web sites for trabeculectomy met all the criteria for JAMA's quality assessment. The mean DISCERN scores for peripheral iridotomy and trabeculectomy were 44 and 43.7, respectively, indicating poor quality. For the DISCERN scale, level of agreement between raters for each question ranged from κ = 0.550 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.700–1.026) to κ = 0.884 (95% CI 0.751–1.017). For the JAMA 4 scale, level of agreement for each question ranged from κ = 0.874 (95% CI 0.734–1.01) to κ = 1.00. Conclusion Our study indicates that information found online for two common ophthalmic procedures is of variable and poor quality. Thus, patients may be receiving misinformation online and better measures need to be implemented to avoid the dissemination of low-quality health information.