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Comment by lawtalkinghuman | Hacker News Reader

I'd trust Wikimedia's privacy policy a hell of a lot more than I'd trust TikTok's.

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.

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> I'd trust Wikimedia's privacy policy a hell of a lot more than I'd trust TikTok's

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.

I was being snarky about the quality of the information, but the privacy issue is the important one.

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.

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