Author Interviews, COVID -19 Coronavirus, JAMA, Technology, UCSD, Vaccine Studies / 25.04.2024
UCSD Study Finds X’s Community Notes Fosters Learning Environment Rather Than Censorship Model
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
John W. Ayers, PhD MA
Vice Chief of Innovation | Assoc. Professor
Div. Infectious Disease & Global Public Health University of California San Diego Since the World Health Organization declared an ‘infodemic’ of misinformation, there have been surprisingly few achievements to celebrate. X's Community Notes have emerged as an innovative strategy to address misinformation as reported in the latest issue of JAMA.
John W. Ayers, PhD MA
Vice Chief of Innovation | Assoc. ProfessorDiv. Infectious Disease & Global Public Health University of California San Diego Since the World Health Organization declared an ‘infodemic’ of misinformation, there have been surprisingly few achievements to celebrate. X's Community Notes have emerged as an innovative strategy to address misinformation as reported in the latest issue of JAMA.
Before the inception of Community Notes, social media companies employed various tactics to tackle misinformation, including censoring, shadowbanning (muting a user or their content on a platform without informing them), and adding generic warning labels to problematic content. However, these efforts were typically undisclosed meaning their effectiveness could not be studied.
In late 2022, X introduced Community Notes. This novel approach empowers volunteer, independent, anonymous, and ideologically diverse contributors to identify posts containing misinformation and to rectify misinformation by appending informative "notes" to suspect posts. The process is controlled by the public, instead of decision-makers at the company. Most importantly the system is open-sourced so it can be studied by external scientists.
Dr. Pierce[/caption]
John Pierce, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Department of Family Medicine and Public Health
Moores Cancer Center Director for Population Sciences
Co-leader of the Cancer Prevention program
UC San Diego
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Graphic Warning Labels are to be implemented in the US in July 2022, depending on litigation. This will be about 10 years after they were first proposed. Meanwhile, 120 other countries have implemented them already.
The FDA states that their purpose for the warnings is to provide a constant reminder to smokers about the health consequences of smoking, not to force them to quit.
In our study, 3 months of having cigarettes repackaged into graphic warning packs was associated with smokers thinking more about quitting and not getting as much pleasure out of their cigarettes. However, thinking about quitting is only the first step to conquering a nicotine addiction.
Dr. Taub[/caption]
Pam R. Taub, MD, FACC, FASPC
Director of Step Family Foundation Cardiovascular Rehabilitation and Wellness Center
Associate Professor of Medicine
UC San Diego Health System
Division of Cardiovascular Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Would you briefly explain what is meant by postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome? Is it more common in patients who have incompletely recovered from a COVID-19 infection?
Response: Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) is a, complex multisystem clinical syndrome Patients experience a wide spectrum of symptoms of varying severity, which are often debilitating. Upon assuming an upright standing position from being supine, patients experience an increase in heart rate by 30 beats per minute (bpm) from supine position, This is often accompanied by lightheadedness, palpitations, dyspnea, mental clouding (“brain fog”), headaches.
POTS can occur after infections as it thought to be triggered by the immune system . The hypothesis is that when the body is fighting an infection some of the antibodies it produces can attack our regulatory systems that control heart rate and blood pressure.
We are seeing an increase in POTS cases occurring after COVID-19 infection. These patient are referred to as the “long haulers”
These long haulers have elevated heart rate, fatigue, brain fog and shortness of breath with activity consistent with POTS.
We are seeing that COVID-19 is another infection that can lead to POTS.
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