City Research Online

Abstract

This chapter provides an ethnographic account of how content creators present cancer cures on TikTok. It assesses the quality of cancer cure videos algorithmically recommended by TikTok, the radicalization pathways afforded by short video platforms like TikTok and their potential to cause online harms. Content creators commonly feature contrarian doctors and draw on a conspiratorial worldview to present various miracle cures as intentionally concealed and stigmatized by the establishment. This framing gives credence to creators’ claims and the cures they promote. It also presents TikTok as a more reliable platform from which to access health information censored by the mainstream. Since TikTok is used as a search engine by younger demographics, it becomes a key means of accessing health information. Using TikTok to access health information poses significant risks: First, the technological affordances of TikTok render the app susceptible to radicalizing users. While radicalization is not technologically determined by simply viewing content, radicalization can occur through the endless scroll of conspiratorial content algorithmically recommended to users searching for cancer cures on the platform through a gradual process of socialization. Second, short form videos can become a gateway to radical views because these videos commonly direct users to personal bios, websites and ecommerce stores. Third, radicalization and online harms can be facilitated by TikTok because the app provides accessible avenues for monetization that incentivize content creators to profit from fake cancer cures. This research has important implications for content moderators because the risk of cancer misinformation is not limited to the content uploaded the platform, but the ways in which short videos become a gateway to harmful products and more extreme, conspiratorial content.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter to be published by Routledge in The Impact of Misinformation and Disinformation on a Democratic Society. It will be available online: https://www.routledge.com/
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine T Technology > T Technology (General)
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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