The truth is out there ... somewhere

• Published date: 18 April 2024
• Publication title: Katikati Advertiser

Want something about vaccination? You’ll find it on social media

Need some points on climate change? Lots on social media.

Advice on child-rearing? Of course, it’s there.

In fact, material can be found, or will appear, for anything you want, or any question you post.

That in itself should be a warning.

Most people know that facts come from professional platforms and organisations.

Social media is generally not in the professional category — though, muddlingly, it is used by some professional bodies to try to disseminate news and information.

Most people do not regard social media as a trustworthy source of information.

In the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, authors stated a “shared media environment has given way to echo chambers, making it harder to collaboratively solve problems. Media is not trusted, with especially low trust in social media”.

Only 41 per cent of people trusted social media in comparison with 59 per cent trusting traditional media and 63 per cent trusting search engines.

Scientists were trusted by 76 per cent of respondents.

In 2024, the Edelman report focused on innovation and technologies.

Although 51 per cent of people said they searched the internet as their primary source of information about innovation and technologies, 74 per cent of them trusted scientists and only 47 per cent trusted journalists.

Although 74 per cent of people trusted “someone like me”, the response was positive to the statement “To earn my acceptance, show me the innovation is vetted by scientists and ethicists”.

This is a good suggestion for everybody and is the basic foundation for publications in scientific journals — the information goes through peer review where the process of information/data gathering, and the interpretation of the results, are challenged to ensure credibility.

Blogs on social media are not subject to this process. They can be interesting. They can be factually correct and presented in an accessible way. They can also be without any credibility at all — but how does the reader work out fact from fiction?

Distinguishing is particularly difficult when social media posts have nuggets of truth, but extrapolation leads the reader further and further from that truth until the conclusion is not valid — but seems plausible because of the cherry-picking of information.

Leaving out the caveats and limitations, for example — “this occurs only when ...”, not mentioning the sample size, or the fact that the research was done in a petri dish and not...