Umm, No: Slate Incorrectly Tweets That the HPV Virus Can Prevent Cancer

Free advice for social media editors: always, always, always, always double-check your tweets.

Slate tweeted a link to one of it’s columns Wednesday, asking “Why don’t physicians tell their patients that the HPV virus can prevent anal cancer?”

First of all, kudos to Slate for picking quite possibly the creepiest stock photo to use for a story on anal cancer.

But more to the point, the tweet botched the actual title of the piece: “Why Don’t Doctors Tell Patients the HPV Vaccine Can Prevent Anal Cancer?” Contrary to the tweet, the virus actually causes anal cancer. Oops.

The Twitterverse noticed the error immediaitely.

@Slate Maybe check that headline? Very dangerous bit of misinformation.

— Kristen Ibbi (@kribbi) November 30, 2016

@Slate May want to revise that tweet, quickly.

— Jason Palmer (@jasonpalmer770) November 30, 2016

@Slate The picture…WTF?, The title…WTF?
I’d go with the “We were hacked” excuse

— JR (@Rightwing_Vet) November 30, 2016

@Slate prolly put the crack pipe down for a bit, ed.

— Oh,I’mNotADoctor (@gureisumikku) November 30, 2016

[Image via screengrab]

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