Most corporate PR statements are crafted this way. They often give the illusion of saying something because all the key words of saying something are there, but they're often crafted in a way that if read carefully, say almost nothing at all or have a giant disclaimer in small font that essentially says *none of this maybe true and is subject to change.

A lot of pharmaceutical advertisements do this to: this might help you, it might also kill you, you choose(!) but please ask your doctor about us anyways and throw us some money.

I love looking at pharmaceutical advertising in this way - what they do say is the absolute legally maximum they could say about the product. If there were stronger claims, they could make them.

Therefore, if they say "may help against X", then it doesn't really, because if they had substantial evidence of that, they would state that.

But in the case of pharmaceuticals there is at least rigorous scientific evidence behind the statements. Even so, science does not have all the answers, and to pretend so would be making a mockery of the scientific method.

The research the GP's quote is referencing said Instagram made 41% feel better, 31% worse, and no impact for the other 28%. It's not clear why that can be used as evidence that it makes some girls feel worse about themselves but that it makes some girls feel better about themselves.

I've come up with a new sports drink. X% of people say it makes them feel good! WOOO! Y% don't feel anything. About one in Z people will absolutely feel worse. If you have suicidal thoughts, about one in ten of those will be able to attribute their suicidal thinking to my drink. When interviewed about my drink, teenagers will unprompted blame the drink on increasing rates of anxiety and and depression. If you feel unattractive, odds are about even you started feeling that way when you started drinking my drink. Teens regularly report wanting to drink less of my drink but lack the self control to do so. In part this is because they report feeling like they have to be seen drinking my drink. I know all this because I employ researchers who say they can't get people in my sports drink company to take their findings seriously because those researchers are "standing directly between people and their bonuses". So my execs don't use our internal research, but cite instead other studies (by orgs that I donate to) that highlight the positives.

I make $BILLIONS from this drink.

(fill in whatever value of X, Y and Z makes this all ok)

Alcohol is not a sports drink.

Probably any social activity is similar. I'm willing to bet the statistics for "high school prom" are much worse. And then there's Cosmo and Vogue...

Your note that the world is sexist and many things make women, teens and girls continously negatively evaluate themselves is something I agree.

The rest I would truly contest.

Prom is not an every single morning, universe commenting event no matter how the teenage brain may attempt to blow it up.

Cosmo and Vogue do not have the same continuous feedback loop and clearly have 100x (1000x? 1mnx?) less content being created, repeated, refreshed, etc. Its a magazine. If you want to invoke their IG handles honestly I could find 100s of influencers with more reach and engagement

> Your note that the world is sexist and many things make women, teens and girls continously negatively evaluate themselves

How did you pull this from a rather benign statement about high school prom and magazines?

I think in contemporary culture and media in western nations sexism is vastly exaggerated. At least if you use the classical definition. Someone who is sexist rarely burdens people with expectations since those are by definition quite low.

I believe other social phenomena are responsible for this, mainly forms of peer pressur. The stories influencers use to lure their audiences often invokes the threat of sexism and that naturally increases fears that might lead to a feedback loop.

Without data, these are biased assumptions.

wow this is fascinating, taking the veneer of something in the tautological space and using it as sheep's clothing over something known to be a wolf. There's something curious about this form of misleading that deserves to be identified and named to be called out in future instances.

"Foods containing sugar have been found to save lives in a number of studies."

"Regular smoking use is associated with lower BMI, which is shown to correlate with improved heart health and lower mortality rates."

"Use of fossil fuels powers a number of ecology-preserving tasks, allowing us to care for the environment in a way we could not without this amazing source of Earth-loving fuel."

You are far too good at crafting these passages.

It's fairly easy if you understand the meaning of "can be true". There can be countless instances where it's not true but if you find just _one_ instance where it's true, then your "can be true" statement must be true.

Love it.

It still needs a name. Here let me try:

Disproportionate benefit insinuation error: Implying (without explicitly stating that it has more benefits than disadvantages because that would be a disprovable lie) that because something has some benefit, it is overall helpful.

Or just "plausible deniability"- factually stating the existence of a beneficial tree, but omitting mention of the harmful forest

Or just "cherry-picking"

Or to cover cases where a harm is insinuated/emphasized in the same way in order to discredit something (see: literally all the antivax data, antiscience, antimedicine... "trust doctors, you mean like the ones who prescribed thalidomide?")... "Misrepresenting the forest"

maybe a good contraction would be a disbeni

It has a name, its called "sophistry", and the practitioners "sophists". [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophist

Nice short episode on them here for those who are interested

https://historyofphilosophy.net/sophists

Gorgias was perhaps the most well-known ancient Sophist, and is also the namesake of one of Plato's Dialogues, which happens to be one of my favourites. Highly recommend reading the above, and into sophistry and rhetoric more generally, if you're the sort that gets annoyed by modern bullshit, and wants a set of names and tactics to defend the sanctity (and sanity) of your opinions.

Once you notice the "Weasel words" [1] you'll never see a press release like this one the same way again.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_word

This is called creating a narrative by cherry picking facts. This is what the media does, and is why so many people (most Americans per Pew) distrust them.

Disingenuous non sequitur?

Yes. When he goes to those hearings, Zuckerberg fixes a spot and begins all of his answers with "[pause] Senator... [pause] [Generic reassuring statement] <very clever and deceptive answer>. (https://youtu.be/XXuk-WSDDRw?t=111)

There's a conspiracy theory stating that he's wearing AR contact lenses such as those (https://www.wired.com/story/mojo-vision-smart-contact-lens/) and we know he's been working on this since 2017 (https://www.dezeen.com/2017/04/20/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-e...).

It's a true statement. Surely connecting via social apps has had positive mental health benefits on at least one person. That alone would make it true.

I think the problem is most people probably read the statement and don't realize just how weak the evidence required to make it true is.

I would interpret it as "connecting via social apps has a greater than absolute 0 probability of giving positive mental health benefits".

Then I think we're in agreement? "Connecting via social apps has a non-0 probability of giving (to whom? at least one person?) positive mental health benefits".

Exactly. If one person in the world benefits from using Instagram and the other 7 billion people get depressed, then the statement FB made is still true.

I am agreeing with you. Just mentioning how I frame/see it in my head.