Great discussion. The problem with Facebook is that it is a company which means it’s a profit making company and thrives only by having more traffic using the platform. This simply means the company does not care whether the (health) information is of good or bad quality. The other huge problem that this platform has is its total bias to certain ethnic groups and certain political views. This makes it impartial. Of course the vast majority of the world does not have access to this platform and over 50% of the world population does not have access to the internet. Engaging countries ministries of health or else in vetting the quality of information and creating language version of these messages is not realistic. There are many published codes of conduct on the quality of health and medical information. Following these codes simply means using only sources that have been peer reviewed, as suggested also in the posting. Ethics is the only way to stop people from posting low quality information aiming at misleading, misinformation and selling of products on the expense of People’s health. At some point WHO at the WHA tried to regulate the Top Level Domain name of health or eHealth on the internet. Rejection of the proposal came from the countries that have commercial interest in the internet, i.e. commercialization of the content of the internet. I will be happy to give examples of every single statement provided including people of Africa were taken to North America and Europe as slaves.
Best regards.
Najeeb Al-Shorbaji, PhD, FIAHSI
Independent Consultant in Knowledge Management and eHealth
Mobile: +962 799391604
Tel.: +962 (6) 5240273
Website: www.shorbaji.net
e-Marefa Advisor
President, Jordan Library and Information Association
President, eHealth Development Association, Jordan
IMIA Vice-President for MEDINFO
Part-time Lecturer & Researcher in Medical Informatics, PLR, Germany
ORCID ID 0000-0003-3843-8430
HIFA profile: Najeeb Al-Shorbaji recently retired from the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked since 1988 in different capacities. He was most recently Director of the Knowledge, Ethics and Research Department at WHO headquarters, Geneva. Previously he was Coordinator for Knowledge Management and Sharing in EMRO (Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office), Egypt. He is a member of a number of national and international professional societies and associations specialised in information management and health informatics. He has authored over 100 research papers and articles presented in various conferences and published in professional journals. He is a member of the HIFA Steering Group and the HIFA Working Group on Multilingualism.
http://www.hifa.org/support/members/najeeb
http://www.hifa.org/projects/multilingualism
Email: shorbajin AT gmail.com
