The Grid
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, videos about how to perform at-home abortions using herbs like pennyroyal and mugwort went viral on TikTok. Doctors grew concerned, warning that herbal abortions are actually quite dangerous, despite what TikTok videos claimed. But the videos continued to spread — so much so, they were viewed over 18 million times, per a report from NewsGuard.

What’s even more alarming: TikTok is where about 40 percent of young people get their information, including news. And according to NewsGuard, around 20 percent of TikTok videos on popular news searches contained misinformation.

“We’ve confused young people’s ability to operate digital devices with the sophistication they need to discern whether the information those devices yield is something that can be relied upon,” said Sam Wineburg, research psychologist at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and author of a 2021 study on students’ fact-checking abilities.

While experts and parents agree that Gen Z (roughly ages 12-26) and Gen Alpha (under 12) are at the highest risk of being influenced by misinformation (Gen Z is the platform’s biggest group of consumers), how to go about tackling the issue has people divided. MORE