Understanding and Mitigating Mental Health Misinformation on Video Sharing Platforms

Abstract: Despite the ever-strong demand for mental health care globally, access to traditional mental health services remains severely limited expensive, and stifled by stigma and systemic barriers. Thus, over the last few years, young people are increasingly turning to content on video-sharing platforms (VSPs) like TikTok and YouTube to help them navigate their mental health journey. However, navigating towards trustworthy information relating to mental health on these platforms is challenging, given the uncontrollable and unregulated growth of dedicated mental health content and content creators catering to a wide array of mental health conditions on these platforms. In this paper, we attempt to define what constitutes as "mental health misinformation" through examples. In addition, we also suggest some open questions to answer and challenges to tackle regarding this important and timely research topic