John,
Freedom of choice is a core democratic value -- but TikTok’s algorithm erodes it.
A new investigation by Media Matters reveals that when users search TikTok for abortion information, they’re bombarded with anti-abortion propaganda -- not accurate, fact-based health content. The platform’s algorithm promotes deceptive, extremist material designed to shame and mislead, often from accounts tied to far-right organizations.
This isn’t accidental. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation has documented, tech platforms like TikTok are enabling a broader campaign to undermine reproductive rights through disinformation. And that campaign doesn’t just threaten public health -- it chips away at the democratic principles of bodily autonomy, freedom of choice, and the right to make private medical decisions without coercion or surveillance.
Tell TikTok: Take responsibility. Fix the algorithm. Stop promoting disinformation that threatens choice, privacy, and fundamental rights.
Instead of promoting trusted medical voices, TikTok’s algorithm buries them beneath lies and fear-mongering -- steering users away from science and into shame. At a time when abortion access is already under attack, this is a direct assault on both individual rights and democratic integrity.
TikTok says it values community safety -- but allowing its algorithm to be weaponized against its users’ needs for legitimate health information says otherwise.
We can’t let tech giants write the rules secretly in lines of code that hide the underlying intents. The fight for abortion rights isn’t happening just in courts of law or state legislatures -- it’s being shaped in social media spaces, online, in our feeds, and in the algorithms that direct our mental attention, often without our knowledge or consent.
Tell TikTok: Fix the algorithm. Remove anti-abortion disinformation, and stop promoting propaganda that endangers lives.
Thank you for standing up for information integrity and the democratic right to choose.
- DFA AF Team
