Steven Bartlett sharing harmful health misinformation on Diary of CEO podcast
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gpz163vg2o
Posted by snuskbusken
Steven Bartlett sharing harmful health misinformation on Diary of CEO podcast
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gpz163vg2o
Posted by snuskbusken
19 Comments
“ In the podcast, Dr Seyfried also suggested radiotherapy and chemotherapy only improved patients’ lifespan by one-to-two months, comparing modern cancer treatments to “medieval cures”. Mr Bartlett did not react to this claim.
Cancer Research UK statistics show that UK cancer survival has doubled in the past 50 years. In the US, the cancer death rate has declined 33% since 1990, thanks to modern treatments. Dr Thomas Seyfried told us he “stands by the statements that he made in the interview”.
The solutions these guests are offering are appealing to listeners as they feel tangible and come without the side effects of pharmaceutical drugs, says Prof Heidi Larson, an expert in public confidence in healthcare. “But they [the guests] are way overstretching. It sends people away from evidence-based medicine. They stop doing things that might have some side effects, even though it could save their life.”
Cécile Simmons, from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, a think tank specialising in disinformation research, believes this type of content can help to grow audiences. “Health-related clickbait content with scary titles does really well online with the algorithm amplifying that,” she said.”
He isn’t someone who pushes back on a guest. He does have on some good doctors. Recently, I saw snippets of his interview with Dr. Mike, who incidentally has his own podcast but as a Doctor with a medical degree, Dr Mike knows when to push back against unsubstantiated health claims made by a guest. Steven doesn’t have that ability.
I used to listen to his podcast for a while and it had some interesting people on it, but as it got more popular it seemed to invite people with more and more extreme points of view totally unchallenged.
It went from ‘I’ve done something amazing and this is my experience’ to ‘Magic beans I grow in moonlight help me take an ice shower at 3am and live to 200’ pretty quickly.
To the surprise of no one. He’s a grifting fraudster who has made a fortune on misleading people. It was only in August he was in trouble over Huel and other brands making misleading claims, and before that it was overinflating the value of his businesses and expertise.
He’s a walking marketing textbook spewing out business jargon he barely understands to people who really do not understand, in an attempt to appear informed, clever and professional.
He’s a millennial charlatan with a clever grasp of social media. Nothing else. Hardly surprised someone who is controversial courts controversial characters.
I can’t stand this guy, not sure quite why. He just seems kinda smug?
No surprises here because all these self-made, entrepreneurial types have an element of grift to them. Once they make a bit of money and get some fame, it goes to their head and they think they are some kind of fount of wisdom.
In reality though they are not capable of seeing through bullshit in areas beyond their expertise and so end up pushing harmful stuff like this. It’s a scary trend set to get worse.
He’s by no means dumb, but sometimes he doesn’t push back at all and doesn’t really ask questions that would be helpful and legitimate.
I met him once at a business conference and he wasn’t scared to ask serious questions and also be informed if he wanted to be, so he’s a very smart dude but his podcast seems to do this a lot. I get it but I believe he’s better than that and should not do stuff like this for just more listeners and more guests.
Absolute fanny, always had a bad feeling about him
Isn’t this a dangerous game for CEOs to play these days?
The more extreme, the more headlines, the more money. We need to accept business people aren’t trustworthy sources.
To the surprise of no one, Stephen Bartlett is a massive dildo
I really struggle to believe there are millions of people who want to listen to him.
I don’t know how anyone buys into this guy anyway? He’s so disingenuous and phoney. I really tried to read his book a few years ago and I couldn’t make it past the first chapter
Bit of a non story. Most people have never heard of him and he can put whatever he wants on his podcasts.
Also, Global Disinformation Unit ? Really?
At this point websites like YouTube should use AI to flag info that is potentially harmful and even give some sort of score that could even be used to deprioritise videos or channels in the algorithm that constantly mislead. Not saying if you make a single wrong claim you get delisted or anything because it’s a balancing act to some extent and you don’t really want to block controversial views(as long as the claim could potentially be true) but with health related claims it’s a real problem and a big part of the problem is that the algo too often promotes misleading content precisely because it’s controversial.
People probably would ignore it anyway thinking they’ve been silenced or something but misinfo is a very real modern day threat
I really just want to see Deborah Meaden slap him on Dragon’s Den. How she can sit there and put up with his bullshit is beyond me. He acts like he is the second coming of Jesus but all he really offers some social media training, which so many other people can offer (and probably do better than he can).
I stopped listening to all these kinds of people a good while back. They’re nothing but snake oil sales people. Fraudsters, the lot of them.
Eat reasonably healthy, be reasonably active and try and sleep reasonably well. Job fucking done.
The guy has just a skilled marketing team behind him
His entire career has been based on a series of lies. His company was never worth what he says it was – claiming other people’s work as his own. Which he then leveraged into his Dragons Den gig and then his cringeworthy CEO social media activities (CEO? He was in charge of a little media company). He has always been about the grift so this should be a surprise to no-one.