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Being attacked by those who traffic with false promises sounds like a “slap” to patients like me.
By Anne Borden King
Ms. Borden King is a lawyer who works to prevent the spread of misinformation.
Last week, I posted about my breast cancer diagnosis on Facebook. Since then, my Facebook feed has featured ads for “alternative cancer care.” The ads, which were new to my timeline, promote everything from cumin seeds to colloidal silver as cancer treatments. Some ads promise luxury clinics — or even “nontoxic cancer therapies” on a beach in Mexico.
There’s an explanation for why I’ll never fall in love with those ads: I’m an advocate for pseudoscience. As a representative of the Bad Science Watch Monitoring Group and founder of Campaign Against Phony Autism Cures, I learned to recognize the characteristics of pseudoscience marketing: unsophisticated and harmful treatments, responses, and promising simplistic support. Things like “chlorine remedies” promise to treat everything from Covid-19 to autism.
When I saw the ads, I knew that Facebook had probably tagged me to receive them. Interestingly, I haven’t seen any legitimate cancer care ads in my newsfeed, just pseudoscience. This may be because pseudoscience companies rely on social media in a way that other forms of health care don’t. Pseudoscience companies leverage Facebook’s social and supportive environment to connect their products with identities and to build communities around their products. They use influencers and patient testimonials. Some companies also recruit members through Facebook “support groups” to sell their products in pyramid schemes.
Through all these social networks, patients begin to feel a sense of belonging, making it difficult for them to consult a product. Cancer patients are especially vulnerable to this stealth marketing. It’s hard to settle for the loss of a cancer diagnosis. As cancer patients, we are told where to go, how to sit and what to bring with us. This can be painful, scary and exhausting, so all our hair falls out. During the pandemic, many of us are also isolated. Our enjoyed can’t come to our appointments or even make a stop at the hospital. Now, more than ever, who’s here to hold our hand?
Pseudoscience corporations are directly inspired by our fears and isolation, giving us a sense of control, while announcing that their products can end our pain. They exploit our feelings to offer fake alternatives, such as the “cellular acceleration” corporation it proclaims on Facebook: “Fighting and bruising the framework just to treat the symptoms of breast cancer is not necessarily the most productive or unique option to be had for you. You have options! »
When I looked at my frame after my recent operation, I wanted another option. I would have given almost anything to be on a beach in Mexico. But I’ve witnessed the false promises of those companies. I spoke to someone who went to that beach clinic to come home and notice that their tumor isn’t working. The evidence is clear: mortality rates are much higher in other people with cancer who decide treatments of choice over popular care.
Facebook is ubiquitous in many of our lives and others use the platform to search for equipment and health-related information. Therefore, we may assume that Facebook has a moral interest in keeping its content free of scams and misinformation. But Facebook has a strange story with the term “pseudoscience.” It was only last April that Facebook got rid of “pseudoscience” as a keyword in its specific advertising categories, and it was only after technical publication The Markup reported that 78 million users were indexed on the Facebook advertising portal as “interested” in the category.
Since the onset of the pandemic, there has been a growing strain on Facebook to remove incorrect information relevant to coronaviruses. Facebook has promised to upload a caution tag to classified ads similar to Covid-19 and remove pseudo-scientific ads reported through its users. The problem, which even Facebook has acknowledged, is that pseudoscience content can paint for months before being informed by readers. Facebook’s main ad filtering formula is automated. While we expect its synthetic intelligence formula to catch up on human critics’ discernment features, a steady stream of pseudo-scientific ads has already been introduced on a platform with billions of users.
Could it be that Facebook has gotten too big to adequately regulate its content? That maybe there’s no hope for the change we need? Some advertisers seem to be suggesting this is the case. They are voting with their feet and leaving the platform altogether. Responding to a call by the advocacy group Stop Hate for Profit, advertisers such as Starbucks, Honda, Diageo and Patagonia have paused their advertising on Facebook as part of a broad boycott over how the platform is handling hate speech and misinformation. This week, Facebook met with representatives from Stop Hate for Profit. In the view of the organizers, the meeting did not go well. “Facebook approached our meeting today like it was nothing more than a PR exercise,” said one of the organizers, Jessica J. González of Free Press, a nonprofit media advocacy group.
If Facebook doesn’t change, what can Americans do? The fastest action is to suspend, delete or even spend less time on Facebook (and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook). I’m in this trend.
My withdrawal from Facebook would possibly mean fewer online connections, possibly at the time I want them most. But I’d go see what some other cancer friend calls “slap” advertising.
My surgical team didn’t give me any false hope or send me to the beach. They stood under bright lighting fixtures in a sandy urban hospital to open and fix me so I can breathe again. The answers they propose are not simple; I have months of challenges. But on this trip, I’ll locate the help of the other people closest to me. Without Facebook.
Anne Borden (@AgainstCures) is the executive director of the Campaign Against Fake Autism Treatments, which works for government regulation to prevent the pseudoscience of autism. She is also a representative of the follow-up organization Bad Science Watch and host of “Noncompliant”, a podcast on neurodiversity.
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