TikTok accounts are using audio from a banned wellness coach to sell salt and castor oil.
How discredited health claims find a second life on TikTok Barbara OâNeill, who makes a living as a holistic health educator, has given lectures claiming that cancer is caused by a fungus and that she has helped people cure their cancer with baking soda and highly restrictive diets, and discouraging those who listened to her from seeking chemotherapy. She has lectured that there are âno safe vaccinesâ and that pregnant women with Strep B do not need to take antibiotics. For these reasons, Australiaâs Health Care Complaints Commission [found in late 2019]( that OâNeillâs teachings posed a ârisk to the health and safety of members of the publicâ and banned her from providing health services in the country for life. Now, more than four years after that ban, it seems as though OâNeill and her discredited dangerous teachings have never been more popular. Just open up [TikTok](. Clips of OâNeillâs lectures, which have circulated on [YouTube](, [Facebook](, and [Instagram]( for years, can get millions of views on TikTok, where they are often used as the soundtrack for creators selling supplements and products in the TikTok Shop. One such video has more than 1.5 million views and urges viewers to drink water with a pinch of Celtic sea salt in order to improve hydration ([it wonât]( ). The videoâs linked product listing for the salt has 3,600 sales. TikTok [influencers]( earn money as affiliate marketers from sales linked to their content, and TikTok takes a [small commission](. E-commerce platforms like TikTok Shop have become a rising source of health misinformation, said Alexandra Popken, the VP of trust and safety at WebPurify, a company that provides moderation services for several major [e-commerce]( platforms (WebPurify does not moderate the TikTok Shop). Popken said that about 3 percent of the content WebPurify moderated in January was flagged as containing false or misleading health information. Often, she said, this is a result of sellers getting attention for products that donât necessarily violate a platformâs [policies]( by making outrageous or impossible claims about their benefits. Health misinformation usually gets a lot of attention when itâs trending on social media or when a real-life consequence of bogus medical advice becomes a news story. In reality, though, this stuff is more unstuck in time, circulating in loops and patterns that catch attention and fade over and over. Protocols and ânaturalâ remedies that were debunked decades ago are constantly finding new audiences online, in [Facebook groups]( for managing illnesses, in anecdotes shared between caregivers, in [circulated statements from politicians,]( in [Instagram advice]( from [wellness]( influencers, and, increasingly, [on TikTok](. Now, these ebbs and flows are giving new life to OâNeillâs lectures. Why health misinformation takes off on TikTok Vox [previously wrote]( about affiliate videos â including some featuring OâNeillâs lectures â selling castor oil as a miracle cure on TikTok. While castor oil is an FDA-approved laxative and is used in some skin care products, it has become trendy as a remedy for a broader range of ailments, generally promoted with little evidence to back it up. A clip from OâNeillâs lecture on castor oil, which has already been debunked as untrue, is still used by some creators selling the oil in the shop. The video claims that castor oil can âheal any problems in the abdomenâ if applied to the skin, including breaking up cysts and fibroids in the uterus. The same lecture claims that castor oil applications can help cure cancer in the brain and abdomen ( [they canât](). Since writing that story in early October 2023, Iâve been tracking what products and health videos show up on my TikTok For You page. The vast majority of TikTok Shop videos I get at this point are recommendations for products that are popular ânaturalâ cures and treatments (in part because I have indicated to TikTok through my engagement with these posts that I am interested in seeing more). Shortly after writing about the castor oil videos, my recommended videos shifted to those pushing wild yam cream as a menopause treatment or hawking soursop leaves as a treatment for cancer. Through these months, the presence of OâNeill audio clips has been a constant in this content. TikTok reviewed several videos mentioned in this story and removed some of them for violating its policies. The platformâs [community guidelines]( prohibit many forms of health misinformation, including those containing âmisleading statements about vaccines, inaccurate medical advice that discourages people from getting appropriate medical care for a life-threatening disease, and other misinformation that poses a risk to public health.â TikTok says it monitors misinformation through a combination of technology, user reports, and information from third-party fact-checking partners. Thereâs evidence that this increased attention isnât just playing out on my For You page: [Google search interest for OâNeill]( in the summer of 2023 alongside the rise of the castor oil trend and has stayed elevated since then. OâNeill was not immediately available to respond to an emailed request for comment on whether this search interest has translated to increased attention for her ongoing lecture circuit. Since her ban in Australia, OâNeill has continued to give talks abroad, including at natural health retreats in the US where attendees [pay thousands of dollars]( sit in on lectures and receive health consultations with her. Many of those retreats are associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, of which OâNeill is a member. And while she does maintain an online presence with an official Facebook and Instagram account that appears to be managed on her behalf, most of the actual lecture uploads are done by third parties: retreats advertising their services or affiliation with her by sharing samples of her appearances at their facilities, companies selling products promoted in her teachings, or fans looking to get attention for OâNeill and her ideas. Those searching for OâNeill are likely to find this content. Because TikTok [recently decided]( stop showing view counts for hashtags on its platform, it can be difficult to quantify the reach or influence of her lectures there. The top video for #barbaraoneill has 7.4 million TikTok views and is a clip of her talk claiming that castor oil can break up cysts, breast cancer tumors, gallstones, and bone spurs. Not all of the videos recommended to me use her name as a hashtag. On YouTube, the top results for a search for her name bring up videos from Living Springs Retreat, an Alabama-based wellness clinic with a large online presence that regularly holds retreats with OâNeill present. [Google]( results are only slightly better. A search run in incognito mode in early February for her full name pulled up a mix of first-page results that included links to her lectures, her books on [Amazon](, and her official website, but also surfaced a couple of articles about her ban from giving health advice. The changing nature of misinformation Iâve been thinking a lot over the past year about what misinformation means and looks like in 2024, as we approach a decade after the conceptâs sharp rise into the collective consciousness of many Americans, and four years after the beginning of the [Covid-19 pandemic](. The rise of OâNeillâs lectures as health misinformation carriers on TikTok gives one illustration of its present reality: Bogus cures and dangerous health trends relentlessly pursue the people who are most vulnerable to their influence by finding ways to enter the algorithmic recommendations of the sick and searching, even if they are less visible to the platformâs user base at large. And once these trends get hold of someoneâs feed, it can be difficult to shake them out. From a moderation perspective, said Popken, the trust and safety executive, that can be âextremely challengingâ to do well, especially if e-commerce platforms rely solely on content bans and keyword filtering to enforce their policies. She added, âThey really need to be thinking about product design and the ways in which these algorithms are repeatedly surfacing this content and maximizing reach in a way that they shouldnât be.â âA.W. Ohlheiser, senior technology writer [A rendering of pharmaceutical pills arranged in the shape of a human brain.]( Getty Images [A brief history of Silicon Valleyâs fascination with drugs]( [Sure, Elon Muskâs into ketamine and Peter Thiel has his doping Olympics, but drugs and tech are nothing new.]( [The tailgate of a Ford Maverick hybrid pickup truck at the Washington Auto Show in 2024.]( Umair Irfan/Vox [Carmakers pumped the brakes on hybrid cars too soon]( [In the age of electric vehicles, the hybrid is still a contender.]( [In this photo illustration, the TikTok logo is displayed on a smartphone screen with the logo for Universal Music in the background. ]( Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images [Whoâll blink first: The worldâs largest music company or TikTok?]( [Why Taylor Swift, Drake, and Bad Bunny have been muted on TikTok dance videos.](
Â
[Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [A person wearing a suit climbs up a wire to a giant light bulb.]( Christina Animashaun/Vox [Can effective altruism stay effective?]( [The flow of new money and interest into core EA fields like AI safety poses a challenge to a movement that was used to being small.]( [Zuckerberg, looking serious, sits in front of a microphone.]( Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images [What weâve learned from 20 years of Facebook]( [In two decades the behemoth social media platform has made a lot of money and brought in a lot of users â and made life worse for a lot of people.]( Support our work Vox Technology is free for all, thanks in part to financial support from our readers. Will you join them by making a gift today? [Give]( [Listen To This] [Listen to This]( [Why America loves faerie smut]( Romantasy is the most popular literary genre in America right now. Vultureâs Kathryn VanArendonk and Circanaâs Kristen McLean explain why. [Listen to Apple Podcasts]( [This is cool] [Electric hurdy gurdy](
Â
[Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [YouTube]( This email was sent to {EMAIL}. Manage yourâ¯[email preferences]( , orâ¯[unsubscribe](param=tech) â¯to stop receiving emails from Vox Media. View our [Privacy Notice]( and our [Terms of Service](. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036. Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved.