If you search “birth control” on TikTok, you’re sure to encounter a creator urging viewers to stop taking hormonal birth control. Side-by-side images show women’s bodies “before and after” taking birth control, chalking up significant changes to contraceptives. Others claim birth control can make us choose the wrong romantic partner, cause cancer, or even call it “evil”.
The truth is that birth control pills and other forms of hormonal contraceptives are safe for most people, and they’re one of the most effective ways to prevent pregnancy. Birth control pills have been prescribed safely since the 1960s among hundreds of millions of people.
The glut of birth control misinformation on social media undermines the longheld and researched advice of medical professionals, and that’s only one example of the many insidious ways misinformation is flooding young people online. From AI-generated videos to mental health misinformation to fake-news-fueled rabbit holes like the “manosphere,” young people are encountering unreliable and false information every day on the platforms they use the most for information.
According to a 2022 report from Newsguard, nearly 20% of TikTok search results around big news events contained misinformation. This means that TikTok users, more than half of whom are under age 24, have a one in five chance of encountering misinformation on the platform when they’re consuming news. Since we know that TikTok is one of the primary ways young people access news, it’s a safe bet that the average young person is being fed some falsities about the world around them — and that has real consequences on politics, the economy, science, and many parts of our society, including how young people navigate their future.
Frequent exposure to social media misinformation can make it even more difficult to discern what’s real and what’s fake online, research shows. A new report from the News Literacy Project, which works to educate students on how to be savvy media consumers, found that young people struggle to recognize fact-based news “because they are surrounded and overwhelmed by other types of content — including low-quality, attention-seeking posts and misinformation masquerading as news — and are routinely exposed to sweeping generalizations that disparage the press in public discourse, particularly on social media.”
Not only can a constant flow of misinformation erode how young people understand what’s true, it can also impact mental and physical health. Like we see with birth control on social media, false medical information online can influence people to take steps around their health that aren’t necessarily backed by science. This frequently takes the form of influencers recommending various supplements, inaccurate mental health information, diet advice, and more. But it’s not just specific behaviors or ideas that health misinformation affects. According to a report from the World Health Organization, taking in all this misinformation can result in “escalating fear and panic or decreased access to health care.” In other words, health-based misinformation could make us even more scared or sick.
For those sharing reliable information on the internet, this can feel pretty bleak. There’s so much misinformation spreading, and people of all ages have record-low levels of trust in the media. The kneejerk reaction is, of course, to outline the reasons why young people should trust journalists, pointing to the standards and ethics used to report the news. But the News Literacy Project report notes that some efforts by media organizations to boost media literacy “can exacerbate news media cynicism.” “For example,” the report continues, “those overly focused on the prevalence of falsehoods in non-journalism content can make people skeptical of all information sources.”
So, how can we best prevent the long-term harm of consuming misinformation? The answer may lie in empowerment.
“We need to give children experience flexing these skepticism muscles and using these critical thinking skills within this online context in order to set them up for their future, where they’re going to be in these contexts close to 24/7,” Evan Orticio, a Ph.D. student in UC Berkeley’s Department of Psychology, told NEA Today. He was the lead author of a 2024 study that found exposing children to “detectable inaccuracies” can make them better fact checkers long-term. “It’s not that we need to enhance skepticism, per se. It’s that we need to give them the ability to use that skepticism to their advantage.”
For example, the News Literacy Project’s “Checkology” resources debunk misinformation and arm young people with the knowledge to spot it themselves by showing them the hallmarks. As a result, 82% of students taking “Checkology” courses could evaluate two articles on the same topic and spot the more credible one.
Creators are doing this in unique and important ways, too. Mallory DeMille, who goes by @This.Is.Mallory on social media, not only calls out health and wellness grifters online, she also talks about why these people are so appealing in the first place. DeMille underscores the parasocial relationship that viewers form with influencers, a bond that builds trust in what they’re saying or selling, while poking holes in their logic. DeMille has built up a following thanks to her of-the-moment analysis and silly bits that draw viewers (Hokey-Pokey Potato Sacking, anyone?), but not every fact-based creator knows how to grow their audience. Katelyn Jetelina and Jess Steier, both science communicators, are working to change that according to NPR, showing scientists and other health professionals how to make their content unique — something that will not just reach their audience, but engage them.
We don’t all have to hop around in a potato sack like DeMille (unless you want to). Building trust can happen in these funny moments, but it can also come through strategies like an “explain your process” box or a dialogue with your audience. Whatever form it comes in, helping young people boost their media literacy will mean a stronger information ecosystem moving forward — and we will all benefit from that.