,
7 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
I admire his enthusiasm, but "drowning out" quackery and medical misinformation with good information just doesn't work. wish him luck, but I wish he'd also talk to those of us who've been at just this thing for many years, like @MarkHoofnagle and others. cnbc.com/2019/05/31/doc…
I wish him luck. 🤦♂️
We frequently assume the the answer to bad information is good information, in greater quantity than the bad information, but we've known for some time that this is not how human minds work. Dr. Chiang appears to have fallen into this trap.
Aside from this, there just aren't enough doctors and scientists who are interested enough in and good enough at social media to execute this strategy, at least not compared to the armies of cranks, trolls, and bots spreading the misinformation.
This model is why so many doctors jump into social media, full of enthusiasm to counter medical misinformation, like what antivaxers spread. Then they find out that it's a deluge, a flood, and unending and overwhelming stream, and they give up.
If only there were a group, a movement, that already exists, that has been thinking about medical misinformation and pseudoscience for decades to consult. If only...
Unfortunately, Dr. Chiang is using the "knowledge deficit" model of combatting misinformation. It's a factor that is much less important in how misinformation spreads than commonly assumed.
