YOUTUBE WANTS PERSONAL HEALTH STORIES TO HELP COMBAT MISINFORMATION

YouTube historically hasn’t been a good place to turn for information about health. Inaccurate or misleading videos are everywhere, research has shown, and the algorithm can push those videos to more people. To shift that trajectory and give people more reliable health information, the platform launched a team last year to build relationships with medical groups, with the ultimate goal of adding videos with reliable health info to the platform. The team is led by Garth Graham, a cardiologist and former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health. He’s the director and global head of healthcare and public health partnerships at YouTube. As another arm of those efforts, the YouTube health team last month launched a Personal Stories shelf, which surfaces relevant videos of people talking about their own experiences with a health condition someone might be searching for. To start, they’re featuring stories on cancer, anxiety, and depression. The feature was inspired by YouTube employee Maya Amoils, who died from cancer last year. After her diagnosis, she sought out connections with other people who were going through similar experiences.

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