Social media and misinformation in urology: what can be done?

Abstract

Social media platforms have become an essential part of our daily lives. While YouTube and Facebook continue to dominate the online landscape, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok have become the favorite social media platforms in the younger generation. TikTok, an app that allows users to create and share 15-s videos, is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. Currently, almost half of young adults aged <30 years uses TikTok, and it has accumulated >1.1 billion active users worldwide [1]. In this issue of BJUI, the study by Xu et al. [2] investigated the misinformation and quality of information of prostate cancer-related videos on TikTok. A total of 55 TikTok videos with the hashtag #prostatecancer were reviewed and analysed. Although the videos had accumulated 134 944 individual views, the vast majority of them (98.2%) were of moderate to poor quality. Among the videos that provided objective information, 41% of them contained a significant amount of misinformation. Moreover, 10.1% of all videos had an apparent commercial bias. These results are worrisome, as the receipt of biased and false information can potentially influence the health-seeking behaviour of our patients. People ‘surf’ the web to gather information about uro-oncological diseases and the trap of ‘fake news’ is always around the corner [3]. In fact, dissemination of misinformation and poor-quality information on social media platforms are very common. This has been demonstrated consistently across different urological conditions on various social media platforms [4]. This is particularly concerning when contents with poor quality tend to attract more public engagement [4]. While it is difficult to establish laws to regulate the usage of social media for healthcare-related contents, we should think of ways to utilise social media in an appropriate and positive manner. As healthcare professionals, we should ensure high-quality information can be delivered to our urological patients. In this rapidly evolving digital era, we have to understand the immense potentials of social media and learn how to use it wisely. Social media platforms differ by their users’ demographics and their styles of communication and interaction. The choice of social media platforms greatly depends on our target audience and the purpose of our social media activities. For example, Instagram may be a good platform for raising awareness of testicular cancer in young men, whereas Twitter may be a better platform for sharing experiences and exchanging medical knowledge among urologists. Creating contents that can yield maximal engagement is a skill that requires learning and a certain degree of expertise [5]. Social media analytics may also help us understand how we can reach our audience more effectively [6]. The general public and our urological patients should be educated on the possibility of encountering low-quality information and even misinformation on social media platforms. Urological associations, professional bodies, institutions and hospitals could also play an active role in the dissemination of high-quality urological information. The European Association of Urology (EAU) has established the EAU Patient Information portal (https://patients.uroweb.org) for patients to access reliable information on various urological conditions. The Urology Care Foundation (https://www.urologyhealth.org), the Official Foundation of the American Urological Association (AUA), has also produced numerous patient-education materials based on the AUA Clinical Guidelines. These are valuable materials that can be actively disseminated to the general public and patients who are in need of urological care. Misinformation in urology is a genuine problem and we must try our best to resolve it. None.