We doctors are an opinionated bunch. Most of us are very comfortable writing in medical journals. Some of us are ok with writing in local and national newspapers. A few of us are at ease on TV and radio. Very few of us, however, are happy to post on social media, unless it feels safe.
As a community, we’ve developed and settled on #MedTwitter as a place where we can feel safe posting social media content. For the most part, the audience is medical rather than general and the topics are focused on provider education. There’s still bad behavior; there’s still medical misinformation; there are still fake accounts; there’s still trolling; but it’s the best we’ve got. We’ve managed to shoehorn a far-from-ideal platform to somewhat fit the needs of providers. We’ve accepted the shortcomings. Until now.
With hate speech on Twitter rising, moderation loosening and the risk misinformation increasing, #MedTwitter users are asking themselves if there’s a better alternative to Twitter. Some have suggested Mastodon. Although around for the last 6 years and with very few users, it appeared, at first glance, to be a viable alternative. However, digging a little deeper, Mastodon has just as many problems, and possibly more, than Twitter. Mastodon is buggy and amateurish. You have to sign up to a particular decentralized server. Whoever is running the server is in charge of moderating the content on that server. If a server is closed down for whatever reason, you lose your user name.
If we were back at the beginning of social media and we could have any platform we wanted, we’d choose Tell™ platform. That’s because it’s designed by providers for providers. Imagine a completely safe social media space that is free of medical misinformation and where you are in control.
Tell™ is a social media platform for health. Every provider is verified, and only providers can post content and recommend posts. Providers can choose to post to only other providers or they can post to the whole Tell™ community. There’s an over-arching moderation board and every provider can moderate the comments on their own posts (if they choose to allow comments). Everyone, everywhere can join as a user and can follow, comment on, like, and share posts from real health experts.
Supporting Tell™ is an opportunity for providers to start again and do social media properly, on our terms. Download Tell™ from the App Store or Google Play to engage with physicians from world-renowned hospitals and research institutions today.
