TikTok activist unleashes spam attack on abortion reporting site in Texas
A TikTok activist has designed a bot system to overwhelm a website where abortion opponents can report anyone who helps people in Texas to abort after six weeks of pregnancy. Vice motherboard reported Thursday.
Texas Right to Life launched the online abortion “tips” line after Texas passed the nation’s most restrictive anti-abortion law, which also allows private citizens to sue abortion and health care providers and collect at least $ 10,000 if they win. The Supreme Court voted 5-4 on Wednesday not to take immediate action to block the legislation.
“The McCarthyism-era tactics of getting neighbors to fight each other over a bill that I believe is a violation of Roe v. Wade is unacceptable,” TikTok user, identified as Sean Black, told Motherboard in an email. “There are people on TikTok who use their platform to educate and do their part. I think this is me doing mine. “
Others are flooding the Texas Right to Life site with things like “Shrek porn. “
In the video above, Black explains that he came up with a boilerplate script to overwhelm Texas Right to Life’s abortion reporting system and make it harder for them to analyze their data. He managed to send 300 site requests before his IP address was blocked, he said.
He then developed an iOS shortcut for the glitchy motherboard, he reported, which successfully tested Black’s instructions and shortcut.
Black told Motherboard that 4,170 people had clicked on his code and 4,870 had clicked on the shortcut as of Thursday morning.
Black said he was inspired by TikTok user Victoria Hammett (featured above), who made a viral video to his 750,000 followers, asking, “Wouldn’t it be so terrible if we sent a bunch of fake advice and blocked the site?”
Beyond Black’s strategy, many other social media users were doing their best to screw up the suggestion site and posting some of their best stuff.
Kimberlyn Schwartz, director of media and communications for Texas Right to Life, admitted Spectrum news that the website has been flooded with “fake reports” and “ddos” – bot – attacks.
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