Facebook data reveal the devastating real-world harms caused by the spread of misinformation

Huge asterisk on this article - the study that they link to for the 17,000 figure is based heavily on data that has now been retracted, or where even the authors now admit it is not verifiable.

To put the real-world harm in perspective, public health studies estimate hydroxychloroquine use was linked to at least 17,000 deaths worldwide, though the true toll is likely higher.

The article that the 17,000 number links to references an article, "Deaths induced by compassionate use of hydroxychloroquine during the first COVID-19 wave: an estimate", which has now been retracted - https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?pmid=38171239

Another study titled "Mortality outcomes with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19 from an international collaborative meta-analysis of randomized trials" that this article references, was ammended months ago to essentially say "Remember how we said it was responsible for those deaths in our initial study 4 years ago? Yeah sorry about that, the evidence doesn't actually support it. Whoopsies!"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-60478-x

Finally, we conclude that there remains uncertainty regarding a potential adverse HCQ effect, in particular in light of the most recent meta-analysis.

So whoever wrote this article in the OP either didn't realize that the article that they based a huge part of their article on had some post-publishing ammendments on one basically discrediting it, and another that had been retracted in 2024, or actively chose to just ignore those ammendments.

Moving on from all that - the gigantic issue with "curbing misinformation", especially when the government is the one doing the curbing, is that we KNOW that they abuse it and use their powers to remove information that they don't like, not just information that is wrong. For example the government forced social media companies to censor "misinformation" about the COVID vaccine that was actually factually correct - how it didn't prevent you from catching or spreading COVID. That was labelled "misinformation" and if you dared to say it you were banned from social media......but it was 100% true.

4 comments

Anyone with eyes can see the harm since we’re living in it
Source of the study this article is based on is here: https://osf.io/vfxy3/
That's misinformation! You think one of the richest men in the world doesn't are about truth? Trump wasn't friends with Epstein despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Go check Facebook! It'll tell you the truth!
Huge asterisk on this article - the study that they link to for the 17,000 figure is based heavily on data that has now been retracted, or where even the authors now admit it is not verifiable.
To put the real-world harm in perspective, public health studies estimate hydroxychloroquine use was linked to at least 17,000 deaths worldwide, though the true toll is likely higher.
The article that the 17,000 number links to references an article, "Deaths induced by compassionate use of hydroxychloroquine during the first COVID-19 wave: an estimate", which has now been retracted - https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?pmid=38171239
Another study titled "Mortality outcomes with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in COVID-19 from an international collaborative meta-analysis of randomized trials" that this article references, was ammended months ago to essentially say "Remember how we said it was responsible for those deaths in our initial study 4 years ago? Yeah sorry about that, the evidence doesn't actually support it. Whoopsies!"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-60478-x
Finally, we conclude that there remains uncertainty regarding a potential adverse HCQ effect, in particular in light of the most recent meta-analysis.
So whoever wrote this article in the OP either didn't realize that the article that they based a huge part of their article on had some post-publishing ammendments on one basically discrediting it, and another that had been retracted in 2024, or actively chose to just ignore those ammendments.
Moving on from all that - the gigantic issue with "curbing misinformation", especially when the government is the one doing the curbing, is that we KNOW that they abuse it and use their powers to remove information that they don't like, not just information that is wrong. For example the government forced social media companies to censor "misinformation" about the COVID vaccine that was actually factually correct - how it didn't prevent you from catching or spreading COVID. That was labelled "misinformation" and if you dared to say it you were banned from social media......but it was 100% true.