Mental health discussions and advice are traditionally given under strong privacy guarantees
Concretely, what privacy concern do you see in watching a video with mental health tips? Do you think this privacy concern similarly extends to reading a Wikipedia article on (eg) CBT techniques?
Or am I misunderstanding, and "Mental health tiktok" involves users describing their mental health issues in videos that they post, and a back-and-forth with those who are claiming to "treat" them?
This is worth elaborating on, since I know HN tends to have a bizarre fantasy conception of the medical system where patients arent supposed to understand anything that's happening. I have to wonder if the HNers contributing to this conception have ever engaged with the medical system, or if they have, I have to pity those that they're responsible for.
There are plenty of doctors in my family, and I've been responsible for managing both chronic and severe acute health issues for family members. Every single one of the doctors I've been in contact with would be shocked by the notion that patients shouldn't be informing thenselves at a basic level. This goes quadruply for basic preventive measures like nutrition, exercise, or basic mental health practices: there's a reason that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".
Eg,
> Cheng believes the website that doxed him by publishing his personal information online was started by pro-Beijing supporters in Hong Kong.
> “I feel fear,” he admitted. His family, too, was scared and told him not to walk home alone anymore. But part of Cheng remains defiant as he considers the doxing website a component of a larger campaign to incite fear in protesters as mass demonstrations continue into their third month.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/hong-kong...
https://mashable.com/article/doj-accuses-zoom-employee-china...
The premise of my pushing back against privacy concerns was mental health advice of the basic, fundamental kind: mindfulness, productive thought patterns, healthy work habits, sleep hygiene, etc etc etc.
Even taking for granted that tiktok's access to this information is scarier than eg Google's, the signal they can glean from this type of usage is little more than "I get anxious sometimes", not things like "I have bipolar disorder". I don't think it's controversial at all to say that getting advice for serious mental disorders via social network isn't a good idea for multiple reasons (again, this is why I clarified with the OP of the story what sort of mental health advice they were seeking).
To make it clear by analogy: one maintains their physical health through a million 24/7 day-to-day decisions, and nobody would blink twice at getting information about eg yoga or healthy recipes from YouTube or other non-medical sources. OTOH, trying to treat your pneumonia or MS via YouTube or tiktok would be an obvious disaster. Similarly, there are a million and one day-to-day actions one takes to maintain their mental health, eg mindfulness or other basic CBT techniques. Researching these independently is not just harmless, it's what people _should_ be doing, regardless of whether they're also seeking treatment (and the privacy concerns are similarly minimal). Again in stark contrast, serious mental health issues shouldn't be treated via casual research.
Also, the English Wikipedia article on cognitive behavioural therapy cites Cochrane reviews, psych textbooks and a whole volley of journal articles from prestigious journals like the Lancet and the Journal of the American Medical Association etc. describing clinical trial results, plus guidance from the UK's National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence.
Presumably, the TikTok version makes up for this by having a better dance routine.
Yes, of course. I wasn't clear, but I was referring to going through a search engine, not going directly to Wikipedia.
> Presumably, the TikTok version makes up for this by having a better dance routine.
I'm afraid you've completely misunderstood what this subthread is about. The _quality_ of medical information and the privacy concerns involved in finding it (whether through Google or via tiktok's algorithm) are completely different topics. To be honest, I can't imagine how anyone could read these comments and come away thinking any comparison was being made (let alone equivalence being drawn) between quality vs privacy concerns.
If the key variable is the search engine, then, yes, you probably don't want to be feeding details of your possible mental health problems into Google. Maybe DuckDuckGo would be preferable. Once you've put your symptoms or diagnosis into a search engine, where you end up is going to likely not be the main issue. If you type, say, "autism spectrum disorder" into Google, Google will make certain assumptions about you regardless of whether you end up clicking on a Wikipedia link, an NHS.uk link, some academic paper on bioRxiv, or a TikTok video with someone describing their autism diagnosis.