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TikTok quacks
TikTok quacks is a bit of a harsh label for TikTok content. The reality is that similar content to that turned out by various TikTok quacks appear on YouTube, Instagram and other social media channels. Quack and quackery are synonyms for medical false claims or a ‘snake oil salesperson’.
Social media not only spreads misinformation and false hope across a range of medical conditions, it allows the perpetrators to profit directly from their work. The rise of dodgy health businesses with commerce integrated into their social posts by the likes of TikTok (and Instagram) facilitates TikTok quacks.
Below are just some of the content currently exposing this intersection between health, wellness, beauty and dishonestly obtained profits.
More information
- Beauty Supplements – Do They Actually Work? How To Choose And Use Beauty Supplements – this gives you an idea of the actual lay of the land for the intersection of beauty and pharmaceuticals
- TikTok’s new shopping feature is selling users everything from weight loss pills to DIY lipo injections | Media Matters for America
- Is Sea Moss Good For You? – The New York Times
- TikTok videos show plastic surgery, Botox, fillers; teens are watching
- What Is the Himalayan Ice Weight Loss “Hack” on TikTok?
China
Country Garden facing ‘biggest challenges since our establishment’, chairwoman says, as debt woes, possible restructuring spur default fears – this implies deep structural problems in China
Consumer behaviour
AI Nation: Exploring Comfort With AI Applications – Harris Poll – how comfortable American consumers are with AI series across travel, financial services and healthcare
Economics
Can unions and industrial policy coexist? – by Noah Smith
Gadgets
Phones: dumb handsets outsmart high-tech alternatives | Financial Times
Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s corporate lawyers test boundaries as Beijing’s influence grows | Financial Times – legal practitioners, including corporate lawyers, are concerned the broadening scope of a sweeping national security law could jeopardise the independence of the city’s legal system, a legacy of British administration, as Beijing tightens its grip. “There is general concern . . . that people are not fully understanding where the boundaries lie,” said a senior corporate lawyer with a global firm who has worked in Hong Kong for more than two decades – not entirely unexpected and a great opportunity for Singapore
How to
The Real Reason You’re Having a Hard Time Getting Things Done at the Office – WSJ – Bose noise-cancelling headphones and clear boundaries
Use and abuse of Google Advanced Search
Ireland
Tesco to introduce free virtual GP service for staff | RTÉ – this makes sense in Ireland, given the two track private / public health system there
Japan
UNDERCOVER Jun Takahashi Solo Exhibition Info | Hypebeast
A weak yen helps Japanese carmakers compete in China | Quartz
Luxury
‘Quiet luxury’ trend gets a fresh spin in China | Financial Times – this makes sense give the cultural and economic environment in China at the moment
Interesting for a few reasons:
- Singapore’s bonded warehouses seem to be more ‘regional’ than Switzerland’s clientele
- This indicates a continued interest in alternative investments
- That the video repeatedly goes on to suggest that these items are from customers in ‘Southeast Asia’ i.e. not China, move along…
Marketing
APG Strategy Skills Survey 2023 – The Results
Materials
Digital materials look to use different geometry of materials to replace other materials with special properties like foams. It does this through 3d printed lattices.
Media
Disney exits the metaverse | web3 is going just great and Disney+ with ads set for November launch in UK – The Media Leader
Multiple Google executives exit as UK MD restructures – The Media Leader – disclosure David McMurtrie was my client at ad-2-one Media and video transfer business IMD
Mail launches football podcast amid audio expansion – The Media Leader – bit of an odd one as I wouldn’t have said that the Mail was well known for its sports coverage
Online
Sweden Is Not Staying Neutral in Russia’s Information War | New York Times – The Psychological Defense Agency also raised political concerns when it was proposed, but its leaders have emphasized that mandate allows it to address only foreign sources of disinformation, not content generated in Sweden. The challenge is one facing all democracies that, as a matter of principle, decline to enforce official ideologies, allowing divergent points of view of what is true or false. “The government can’t control the truth if it’s going to be a democracy,” said Hanna Linderstål, the founder of Earhart Business Protection Agency, a cybersecurity firm in Stockholm, and an adviser to the International Telecommunication Union, part of the United Nations. “The government can’t control the truth if it’s going to be a democracy,” said Hanna Linderstål, the senior cybersecurity adviser of Earhart Business Protection Agency.
Why people — especially young people — are embracing voice notes – Vox – I read this and was reminded a lot of how older people were using WeChat a decade ago and thought about Push-To-Talk on Motorola’s iDEN mobile network technology
Meta’s Twitter rival Threads unravels | Financial Times
Sound the Beats: Spotify’s AI DJ Spins Personalized Tracks | Gizchina – the next step on from Clear Channel’s pioneering of automated radio station selection and playing
Retailing
An Uber-backed robot delivery company is going public—but the industry has yet to really deliver – one of the biggest problems seems to be human opportunism and dishonesty.
‘The Brand Became Pointless’: Why Marketing Failures Lie At The Heart Of Wilko’s Downfall | The Drum – Wilko’s magic was at the till.
Software
ChatGPT In Trouble: OpenAI may go bankrupt by 2024, AI bot costs company $700,000 every day – not terribly surprising, it’s computationally intensive and hard to monetise. Look at how Google and Facebook have looked to squeeze computing power per watt out of their data centres, along with squeezing cost per server right down as well – they did this to reduce operating costs versus income. ChatGPT hadn’t gone there on design and instead uses 10,000 plus servers based around power-hungry top-of-the-range Nvidia graphics processors