Opinion-in-brief: Consuming social media content with care as a New Year’s resolution
As we approach the start of 2023, a good New Year’s resolution could be handling information we find on social media with a lot more care. Research published last week found that a quarter of tweets posted by premium Twitter subscribers on climate change, vaccines and Ukraine contain misinformation.
This number is perhaps not surprising – we’re now used to finding a lot of unconvincing content on social media platforms. But it doesn’t mean we’re always aware that what we’re reading is false or has malicious intent.
When it comes to things like mental health information, this can have a dangerous impact on those reading or watching – with research showing that 94 per cent of TikTok content on bipolar disorder contains misleading information.
New regulation is still being shaped here at home, and the new year will likely bring changes in how social media platforms are allowed to curate and modulate content.
But as a rule of thumb, as social media users we should all put an effort into consuming information proactively – not passively as algorithms can lead us to do – and calling out false or misleading content when we see it.