Antiabortion organization Texas Right to Life, a powerful entity in Texas politics, launched an anonymous “whistleblower” form for Texans to report suspicions that neighbors may be accessing abortion care. TikTokers instead flooded the site with memes and bogus reports.
The site is a response to Texas’s new abortion law that went into effect on September 1. The law bans abortions after as little as six weeks of pregnancy — 85 to 90% of Texans who receive abortions do so after the six-week mark, so the law effectively blocks almost all abortion in the state — and permits individuals to sue anyone they suspect of providing or helping someone get an abortion. This is the first “heartbeat law" of its kind to go into effect in the U.S.
The whistleblowing site, which is not affiliated with the state government, was functional at least the month before the law went into effect, and so was the attempt to flood the site with Shrek porn, as VICE’s Carter Sherman reported. Twitter and TikTok users shared the site, urging others to render it useless.
“Hey Twitter! An anti-choice org is seeking anonymous tips for people helping others seek abortion care in Texas. Gosh, I wonder if they factored in people abusing the integrity of this system,” Nancy Cárdenas Peña, Texas director for policy and advocacy at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, tweeted August 20. “Hmmm I hope ppl don't abuse this! That would be terrible.”
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TikTok user Victoria Hammett also shared the site, suggesting, “Wouldn’t it be so awful if we sent in a bunch of fake tips and crashed the site? Like ‘Greg Abbott’s butt stinks,'” in a video that now has over 200,000 likes.
Inspired by Hammett’s video, TikTok user and programmer Sean Black made his own TikTok on August 23, which publicized a script and iOS shortcut he created to make it easier and faster to submit false data.
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"To me, the McCarthyism-era tactics of turning neighbors against each other over a bill I feel is a violation of Roe v. Wade is unacceptable. There are people on TikTok using their platform to educate and do their part. I believe this is me doing mine," Black told Motherboard about his TikTok. According to The Guardian, Black said nearly 8,000 people have used the script and 9,000 have used the iOS shortcut to bombard the site.
After the new law went into effect on Wednesday, TikTok users continued the troll storm. “It would be a shame if TikTok crashed the Prolifewhistleblower.com website. Real shame,” one TikTok user captioned a video, which read, “Me, submitting 742 fake reports of [TX] Gov. Abbott getting ab*rtions to flood the ab*rtion reporting site.” Others, including Selena Gomez stans, continued replying to the form with false data.
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For its part, Texas Right to Life told Spectrum News that all press is good press — though they confirmed that the fake reports and an earlier DDOS attack both tried to crash the site. If spamming memes isn’t your thing, Teen Vogue has collected a list of ways you can help protect abortion rights in Texas.
Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: How You Can Help Fight the Texas Abortion Ban
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