User Experiences with Abortion Misinformation on TikTok: Encounters, Assessment Strategies, and Response

Research Background and Issues

• What problems or challenges did the authors identify?
  The authors revealed that the TikTok platform contains a significant amount of misleading information about abortion, including unsafe herbal abortion methods and political or legal discussions related to abortion legality. This content not only poses threats to individual health but may also lead users to face criminal penalties for engaging in dangerous or illegal actions.

• Why is this issue important?
  Information related to abortion affects users' health and legal choices, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. It raises concerns about how users can access reliable medical abortion information and avoid criminal risks. Such misinformation may prompt users to attempt unsafe practices, leading to health issues or even death.

• Research Motivation and Related Work
  Previous studies primarily focused on health misinformation that "incites fear." This research expands the scope by specifically examining misleading information related to abortion and its potential impact on criminal law and health outcomes. The motivation for this study is to fill a critical gap by providing a deeper understanding of how users evaluate and respond to abortion misinformation and exploring whether platforms like TikTok adequately regulate the dissemination of such information.

Solutions

• What methods or solutions did the authors propose?
  The authors conducted a study involving 60 U.S.-based TikTok users to investigate how users evaluate and respond to misleading abortion-related information through surveys and the presentation of misleading videos. The study also analyzed the impact of platform recommendation algorithms and soft content moderation (e.g., tags).

• What are the innovative aspects of the solution?

  1. This study is the first to specifically investigate the issue of "criminalization fear" in health misinformation, rather than focusing solely on general "fear-inciting" content.
  2. It utilized TikTok algorithms and ambiguous language (e.g., #ab0rtion as a tag to evade algorithm detection) to uncover user strategies for handling misleading content.
  3. Participants were divided into two groups based on their understanding of the intent behind information dissemination (i.e., personal or political motives), exploring evaluation and response strategies accordingly.

• What are the implementation steps and key technologies used?

  1. Data Collection: Using unofficial TikTok APIs to scrape abortion-related videos and tags, analyzing platform recommendation algorithms.
  2. Participant Recruitment: Recruiting users interested in abortion-related information (aged 18 and above) and administering anonymous surveys.
  3. Video Presentation and Evaluation: Randomly presenting participants with TikTok videos containing misleading abortion information and exploring their judgment of the videos' authenticity and response strategies.
  4. Qualitative Data Analysis: Employing thematic coding analysis methods (e.g., Cohen’s κ test) to understand participant reactions.

Research Findings

• What specific findings were obtained?

  1. TikTok supports and disseminates some misleading abortion-related information, using ambiguous tags (e.g., #abotion, #abortifacient) to evade content moderation.
  2. Participants exhibited significant differences in their reactions to misleading abortion content; 30% of participants believed certain herbal abortion methods were safe and effective, even when TikTok flagged them as dangerous.
  3. Users' evaluation and response strategies varied depending on their understanding of the "intent behind dissemination"; users who perceived the information as politically driven were more likely to engage in fact-checking.

• What advantages does it have compared to existing solutions?

  1. It exposes how platform algorithms and ambiguous tags evade content moderation, providing practical recommendations for platform governance.
  2. It delves into users' subjective evaluation patterns of abortion-related information, offering insights for public education and anti-misinformation strategies (e.g., proactive interventions and corrections).

• What were the experimental or evaluation results?
  The study found that TikTok's soft content moderation (e.g., displaying warning tags) is sometimes ineffective: some users ignored warnings and continued to believe false information. Additionally, many users chose to ignore such content rather than directly interact with it (e.g., commenting, sharing, reporting, or blocking).

• Limitations and Future Directions

  1. Limitations:
     • Data collection was limited to the TikTok platform, and the sample consisted primarily of U.S. users, which may not fully apply to other sociocultural contexts.
     • The sample size was relatively small, limiting its representation of all TikTok users.
     • The study assessed subjective responses through surveys rather than actual user behavior.
  2. Future Directions:
     • Expand the sample size and include users from other social media platforms (e.g., Instagram, Facebook) and regions.
     • Further investigate whether content created by medical professionals can effectively correct abortion-related misinformation.
     • Explore more targeted prevention and correction measures, such as developing more intuitive and impactful content warning systems.

Overall, this study highlights how misleading health information exploits social media users' fears and platform algorithm mechanisms to influence their decision-making. It serves as an important addition to social media research on health and criminal law consequences.