A recent BBC article highlights some of the risk of the new age of social media we have crafted for ourselves. The BBC investigated the number one ranked UK podcast, Diary of a CEO with host Steven Bartlett, for the accuracy of the medical claims recently made on the show. While the podcast started out as focusing on tips from successful businesspeople, it has recently turned toward unconventional medical opinions as this has boosted downloads.

“In an analysis of 15 health-related podcast episodes, BBC World Service found each contained an average of 14 harmful health claims that went against extensive scientific evidence.”

These includes showcasing an anti-vaccine crank, Dr. Malhotra, who claimed that the “Covid vaccine was a net negative for society”. Meanwhile the WHO estimates that the COVID vaccine saved 14 million lives worldwide. A Lancet study estimates that in the European region alone the vaccine saved 1.4 million lives. This number could have been greater were in not for the very type of antivaccine misinformation spread by Dr. Malhotra.

Another guest promoted the Keto diet as a treatment for cancer. Not only is there no evidence to support this claim, dietary restrictions while undergoing treatment for cancer can be very dangerous, and imperil the health of cancer patients.

This reminds me of the 2014 study that found that, “For recommendations in The Dr Oz Show, evidence supported 46%, contradicted 15%, and was not found for 39%.” Of course, evidence published in the BMJ does little to counter misinformation spread on extremely popular shows. The BBC article highlights the fact that in the UK podcasts are not covered by the media regulator Ofcom, which has standards of accuracy and fairness for legacy media.

I have discussed previously the double-edged sword of social media. It did democratize information publishing and has made it easier for experts to communicate directly with the public. But this has come at the expense of quality control – there is now no editorial filter, so the public is overwhelmed with low quality information, misinformation, and disinformation. I think it’s difficulty to argue that this was a good trade-off for society, at least in the short run.

Journalism has never been perfect (nothing is), but at least there are standards and an editorial process. Much of those standards, however, were just norms. Even back to the 1980s there was a lot of handwringing about erosion of those norms by mass media. I remember those quaint days when people worried about The Phil Donahue Show, which dominated daytime television by having on sensational guests. Donahue justified the erosion of quality standards he was pioneering by saying, you have to get viewers. The, occasionally, you can slip in some quality content. But of course Donahue was soon eclipsed by daytime talk shows that abandoned any pretense of being interested in quality content, and who fought to outdo each other in brazen sensationalism.

Perhaps most notorious was Morton Downey Jr., who all but encouraged fights on set. He did not last long, and in a desperate attempt to remain relevant even faked getting attacked by neo-nazis. His hoax was busted, however, because he drew the swastika on himself in the mirror and drew it backwards. Downey was eclipsed by so-called “trash TV” shows like Jerry Springer. These shows were little more than freak shows, without any pretense of being “news” or informative.

But at the same time we saw the rise of shows that did seem to go back to more of a Phil Donahue format of spreading information, not just highlighting the most dysfunctional lives they could find. The Queen of this format was Oprah Winfrey. Unfortunately, her stated goal was to spread her particular brand of spirituality, and she did it very well. She spawned many acolytes, including Dr. Oz, whose shows were based almost entirely on profitable misinformation.

So even before social media hit, there were major problems with the quality of information being fed to the public through mass media. Social media just cranked up the misinformation by a couple orders of magnitude, and swept away any remaining mechanisms of quality control. Social media gives the ability of a few superspreaders of misinformation to have a magnified effect. Misinformation can be favored by algorithms that prioritize engagement over all else – not just misinformation, but radicalizing information. One result is that people trust all news sources less. This leads to a situation where everyone can just believe what suits them, because all information is suspect. In some social media cultures it seems that truth is irrelevant – it’s no longer even a meaningful concept. These are trends that imperil democracy.

Steven Bartlett defends the low quality of the health information he spreads in the laziest of ways, saying the this is about free speech and airing opposing opinions. He is essentially absolving himself of any journalistic responsibility, so that he can be free to pursue maximal audience size at the expense of quality information. Of course, in a unregulated market that is the inevitable result. Most people will consume the information that most people consume, with popularity being driven by sensationalism and ideological support, not quality. Again – this is nothing new. It’s now just algorithmically assured and there are no longer and breaks to slow the spread of misinformation. Worse, ideological and bad actors have learned how to exploit this situation to spread politically motivated disinformation.

Worse still, authoritarian governments now have a really easy time controlling information and therefore their populations. We may have (and this is my worst fear) created the ultimate authoritarian tools. In the big picture of history, this may lead to a ratcheting of societies in the authoritarian direction. We likely won’t see this happening until it’s too late. I know this will be triggering to many partisans, but I think it is reasonable to argue that we are seeing this in the US with the election of Trump, something that would likely have been impossible 20 years ago. His election (I know, it’s difficult to make sweeping conclusions like this) was partly due to the spread of misinformation and the successful leveraging of social media to control the narrative.

I don’t have any clear solutions to all this. We just have to find a way through it somehow. Individual critical thinking and media savvy are essential. But we do need to also have a conversation about the information ecosystem we have created for our societies.