Twitter, #alternativefacts, careless whispers and Rheumatology

Prof Jaap van Laar, Editor of Rheumatology, and Associate Editors Dr James Galloway (King’s College London) and Dr Marwan Bukhari (University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation NHS trust) discuss the impact of social media on science. The rise of social media as a method of news consumption has created a society that wants convenient, succinct information. Subtle changes in the way information is conveyed are amplified the further down the chain you get, as evidenced recently when a paper’s meaning became lost within social media. The rise of alternative metrics to measure impact has also led to success and infamy being measured in equal manner.