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Comment on Autism disinformation on Telegram soars in Latin America and Caribbean.

I feel for you and I believe you when you say it helps you to see you‘re not alone. However there has been done a lot of observing by journalists and experts and it is largely agreed upon that the majority of information about autism on TikTok is sadly made up or heavily misrepresented.

Seeing other stim may be relieving but it doesn‘t change the fact that it‘s a platform where attention is the currency, virtually no fact checking is done and new, disturbing trends make the rounds all the time as a result.

Please be open minded about it. Because even if what you‘re seeing on there may be emotionally true for you, it‘s often played up or made up for attention.

The TikTok algorithm is also extremely aggressive in that it adapts very quickly to your preferences and creates closed environments. It is possible it simply doesn‘t show you any of those problematic posts. Whenever there‘s a critical article about the app, there are always users defending the platform and their users who genuinely think there is no issue because they can‘t see any of it in their feed. The way you respond to certain topics is completely different to how the average user responds and the algorithm picks up those differences very efficiently. I am sure most users have no idea what the site looks like on average.

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aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Now I’m curious how do the journalists get the data to speak authoritatively, does tiktok give them special access or smth

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- CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  They investigate reports from users and talk to experts usually.
  
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LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
No, it isn’t often made up for attention. And the kind of attention directed towards neurodivergent people on social media is overwhelmingly negative. The exception tends to be from other neurodivergent people.

I am neurodivergent. My partner is neurodivergent. The majority of my friends are also neurodivergent. I am aware of what misinformation about neurodivergent people looks like, and it is categorically not coming from neurodivergent people on TikTok. It is coming from communities dedicated to questioning the diagnosis of others. It is coming from neurotypicals who feel the need to gatekeep neurodivergent people and shame them for being neurodivergent.

Not having an official diagnosis doesn’t mean that you aren’t neurodivergent. Ive been diagnosed since I was 4, but I had far fewer barriers to getting that diagnosis than many people do. Particularly, women and girls face gigantic barriers all the time to getting diagnosed.

No expert or journalist can assess whether someone has a disorder over a video. That’s just a statement of fact. Only through performing actual tests and routinely speaking directly with and observing a patient in a controlled setting can you determine if someone meets the criteria for a diagnosis.

This phenomenon of accusing neurodivergent women and nonbinary people of faking it for attention exists in every social media, not just TikTok. TikTok is just the most prominent due largely to its accessibility. Making a TikTok is far less involved than making a YouTube video. It is in many respects easy for average people to create content for.

Ive seen the “problematic posts”. It’s always a conventionally attractive woman or a nonbinary person showing themselves stimming or having a meltdown or talking about any of the ways that being neurodivergent impacts them. The comments questioning them are always all about “xyz isn’t neurodivergent that’s just normal” “they probably make up a new diagnosis to go with every gender” “I’m neurodivergent and I am inferior in every way and want to die, there’s no way anyone, this happy woman offends me by trying to say that she is neurodivergent too”. It’s not scientific, it’s not journalism, it’s not medical. It is shaming people for being themselves. That’s all.

It’s not your business to gatekeep someone else’s neurodivergent status. It’s not your business to determine whether someone else’s symptoms are valid or not. It’s just ableism. That’s all it is.

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- CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
  You‘re focusing too much on one kind of video and one kind alone. An expert might not be able to tell if stimming is authentic but he can absolutely tell when someone spreads misinformation about Autism. That has been a huge issue on the platform and it does not matter what your experience has been with the app in this case for reasons that I have explained previously.
  
  As is often the case with TikTok users you can‘t see the forest for the trees when issues are addressed, I‘m afraid.
  
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  - LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    You didn’t get into addressing any of the other things I said. I’m not into repeating myself over and over. I’d encourage you to read the rest of what I said, I addressed the things you’ve said here as well.
    
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