It's obvious that the best way to prevent lifestyle cases of skin cancer is to use sunscreen and avoid tanning beds.
Some charlatans, like Joe Mercola, DO, have been fined by the US government for claiming his tanning beds prevent disease, but TikTok is owned by a Chinese dictatorship, and they profit in many ways if misinformation is in America.
It seems to be working. A new analysis of videos shows that videos claiming sunscreen is toxic, even a carcinogen, and blocks the health benefits of sun exposure - the same kind of stuff anti-science progressives claim about pasteurized milk, vegetables grown using normal pesticides, and still claim about vaccines - are wildly popular.
Fortunately, most video content still shows that people are not illiterate, they promote sunscreen use, but that anyone believes suncreen stops vitamin D absorption or causes cancer is a sign scientists and media are letting people down by being nice to frauds.
Statistically significant differences in mean likes, shares and comments between all TikToks (n = 971), only Tiktoks with sunscreen promotion (n = 801), Titkoks with sunscreen promotion and critique (n = 42), and Tiktoks with only critique (n = 16).
The authors unfortunately make the perfect the enemy of the good, wishing more videos talked about the health benefits rather than things like 'less sun will make you look less old' but that's silly. Whatever reason people have to be more healthy is a win.
They write, "Our analysis showed TikTok is not necessarily flooded with sunscreen misinformation, but TikToks which dangerously claim that sunscreen is harmful or unnecessary receive comparatively high levels of audience engagement. TikTok content creators commonly promoted sunscreen as part of skincare regimens where sunscreen benefits were more commonly related to beauty rather than health.”
That's actually fine. If someone says steak tastes good, and people eat protein, I don't care if they didn't go on and on about the benefits of protein. What matters most is public health.
Citation: Marcon A, Zenone M, Boniface V, Peters CE, Caufield T (2026) Sunscreen is overwhelmingly promoted on TikTok, but content with misinformation exhibits proportionally high levels of audience interaction. PLOS Digit Health 5(6): e0001440. https://journals.plos.org/digitalhealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pdig…
