How tech companies are ignoring the pandemic’s mental health crisis
New Stanford research shows many big platforms have no policies for content related to self-harm
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
There is plenty that scientists don’t understand about the long-term effects of COVID-19 on society. But a year in, at least one thing seems clear: the pandemic has been terrible for our collective mental health and a surprising number of tech platforms seem to have given the issue very little thought.
First, the numbers.
Nature reported that the number of adults in the United Kingdom showing symptoms of depression had nearly doubled from March to June of last year, to 19 percent. In the United States, 11 percent of adults reported feeling depressed between January and June 2019; by December 2020, that number had nearly quadrupled, to 42 percent.
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Alongside the pandemic, we’ve also had a parallel crisis: the infodemic, an unending stream of dis- and misinformation flooding social media feeds and online discussions. These types of rumors and falsehoods aren’t new, but the scale with which they spread online is unprecedented, allowing everyone from foreign governments to solo scammers to twist narratives down to the hyper-local level. A good example is the recent New York Times story showing how people in communities of color in the U.S. are hesitant to get COVID-19 vaccines because of misinformation about them from Russian-backed websites such as Sputnik and Russia Today.