Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a lot of misinformation video content on health topics has been widely relayed on social networks. It is to fight against this phenomenon that the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) and the YouTube platform announced, Tuesday, October 4, to launch a partnership to produce certified videos of medical information.
Presented in the form of short episodes, lasting three to five minutes, this content, produced by AP-HP professionals, will aim to popularize medical topics with the general public.
Most searched keywords
These videos aim to“Learn to measure (at) blood sugar levels, understand the different stages of breast cancer, join a community of others living with rare diseases or take care of (at) heart health, explains the video platform. The topics covered will be determined according to the most searched keywords on YouTube.
At the same time, the platform has implemented new features to encourage users to view content “reliable and relevant” on the subject, by creating a section “sources of health information” and an insert below the video to give the medical sources of the information mentioned.
The subjects highlighted will be those posted online by recognized organizations. They may come from university hospitals, such as those of Lille or Besançon, recognized websites, such as Psycom mental health info, or foundations such as Vaincre Alzheimer.
130,000 deleted videos
Already during the pandemic, the platform had taken several measures to combat disinformation on these health topics, such as the prohibition of false claims on Covid-19 or the prohibition of disinformation related to a vaccine approved by health authorities. local or global. This policy resulted in the removal of over 130,000 videos.
The effectiveness of such a measure will however depend on its visibility, on a platform which has, in France, more than 52 million users with personalized search algorithms. The most viewed video of the AP-HP has so far only 6,000 views on YouTube.
“The question of the best referencing is not an objective in itself for us”, explains a representative of the AP-HP. More than the number of “clicks”, the main thing is above all to guarantee Internet users looking for advice access to reliable information. : « In the event of a video search on one of the themes covered by the AP-HP YouTube channel, these videos will be uploaded to YouTube and will appear as validated scientific content. »