Misinformation on health topics can be found all over Pinterest, a website where users save infographics and other images hyperlinked back to not-always-verified sources, BuzzFeed News reports.
Over the past month, BuzzFeed News dug up more than a dozen misleading health- and science-related pins that were being shared across its platform. One pin falsely claimed that "boiled cinnamon and honey is the cure for many health problems" from cancer to arthritis to gallbladder infections. It was saved to nearly 13,000 "boards," a sort of virtual tack board. Another pin — "retired pharmacy chief said: 'the world needs to know, alkaline water kills cancer'" — was saved to more than 16,500 boards.
Several of the bogus pins were removed after BuzzFeed News contacted Pinterest and the authors of the pins for comment, with Pinterest citing a violation of its terms of service as cause for removal.
Adelin Cai, head of policy at Pinterest, said the site has a "small volume" of medical misinformation, but she did not know what percentage of its overall content was false medical advice.
"We have so much content on the platform. It's curated by millions of people across a variety of categories," Ms. Cai told BuzzFeed News. "Sometimes those ideas might be controversial or cause some public concern, or they just might not be for everyone."
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