Is generative AI a threat to online health content? It depends where you see it…

The current supreme court case about our government’s efforts to suppress misinformation on social networks reminded me of how differently search engines and social media platforms treat health content on their platforms, and therefore present different challenges and opportunities for digital marketers. Let’s leave the legal, regulatory — even the ethical — arguments related to online misinformation to the experts in those disciplines, and assess how marketers looking to promote health content can succeed in this evolving ‘digital arena’ of increasingly powerful digital platforms and now the advent of generative AI. Looking at recent and historical search engine and social media platform activities suggest that the fight against health misinformation content will proceed very differently across these two channels, regardless of where the court lands and what political actors and influence peddlers do. Three points to consider:

First, search engines are building on a history of promoting reliable, accurate, timely, and authoritative health content, and have done so since the internet empowered “Dr. Moms” to access health information online. Google started with a focus on health and livelihood content back with the June 2013 quality evaluator guidelines for SEOs where “YMYL” (your money your life) was first used to describe their ranking approach, which was then extended and refined repeatedly, notably with the MEDIC update in 2018 and the BERT update in Oct 2019 — all to help Google discern search intent related to healthcare (and financial services, but we’re focused on health here!). Notably, the December 2022 update to search factors included whether the content author actually ‘experienced’ the product being described…a real ‘shot across the bow’ to de-prioritize the type of opinion-based content that can misinform consumers. What’s the takeaway for digital marketers? Keep producing great content, optimized for search, and be super vigilant in placing ads in brand safe placements (stay the course). The open question is how generative AI will impact healthcare content quality and accuracy on search engines. Back to that in a mo’

Second, while social platforms are waking up to the power (and threat) their platforms pose to healthy behaviors, health misinformation on these platforms is on the rise, which will continue to drive engagement and ad dollars — and will continue to demand more of marketers looking to advertise responsibly and create compelling (and factual!) content to compete with the deluge of health misinformation. The challenge with social media and health misinformation is that they are, by design, set up to empower influential users sharing content, so while social media usage recently showed a positive correlation with COVID vaccination status, it’s also true that health misinformation, especially the type that appeals to emotion is shared at higher rates than facts. Now, Facebook took action against misinformation (motivated by stopping political interference, not protecting public health, mind) but it is not yet clear how effective this is in stopping the spread. What’s the takeaway for digital marketers? I say we ‘fight fire with fire’ — find pro-health influencers to address the at risk social communities for health misinformation…and have their content appeal to emotional triggers (the same that drive sharing and belief in misinformation) to see the dangers of believing this dross…and finally, as advertisers we can pressure Facebook which has been shown to work.

Third, with respect to generative AI and health misinformation — the gulf of difference between search engines and social media platforms looks likely to persist, perhaps even expand. In search, the experts have noted that Google’s recent AI advice does not punish AI-generated content in search engine results (for any topic) and rather, points to how Bard will look to integrate AI content ethically and usefully. Sounds good, and my own recent keyword research on behalf of public health clients suggests that Bard is generating and presenting content above other search results that ‘gently’ steers the user towards better health outcomes content (yes, this is ‘Nudge meets generative AI’ — in service of better health outcomes…I’m already a fan). The open question is whether a bad actor will succeed in training generative AI to ‘game’ Google’s algorithm to boost misinformation. The currently planned March 2024 core update is specifically targeting AI-generated content for de-indexing…so the heat is on. As for social media and AI, well, there the picture becomes murkier, from my scan at least. Perhaps our best bet as digital marketers is to lean harder on influencer marketing through the Millennials and Gen Y creators who are already looking to leverage generative AI. I don’t see the platforms acting in any scalable fashion (unless forced by regulation…don’t hold your breath) to squash AI generated misinformation content, to say nothing of the human-generated VShred and bone broth SPAM, so these creators might be our best bet to become advocates for, and generators of, high authority (even if AI-generated) healthcare content, appealing to the more values-driven tastes of modern consumers. So — for those of us who lump search and social together as just “channels” I would request that we all take a hard look at how best to optimize our work for where they’re heading — and keep an eye out for what our political class does and doesn’t do in pursuit!