Paris Hilton’s mother Kathy recently tried the “Jell-O diet” to lose weight. She believed other celebrities – Oprah Winfrey, Doctor Oz, Michelle Obama and Kelly Clarkson – had endorsed it. But the diet was fake and so were the endorsements. Both had been generated by artificial intelligence (AI).
Commentators were quick to poke fun. One said:
Kathy is everyone’s grandma that you can’t keep off the internet reading crazy things.
Misleading health claims are easy to find online, not just about fake diets. Examples include misinformation about vaccines and the cholesterol-lowering drugs statins. Then there’s the growing online market for unapproved peptides.
Health misinformation – false, misleading, exaggerated or unsupported claims about health, disease and medical treatments – can have consequences.
It can delay people from seeking medical care, discourage them from following evidence-based treatment, increase preventable illness and erode trust in health professionals. This can happen if such health information is shared deliberately to mislead or with the best of intentions.
And it’s easy to think older people – like 67-year-old Kathy – are more easily tricked into believing it.
But we’re all susceptible, whatever our age.
Adults aged 60 or older are more likely than younger adults to be exposed to deceptive or untrustworthy health content or sites, particularly via Facebook.
This includes content aimed at selling products, lacks...
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