TIMELINE: The impact of Libs of TikTok told through the educators, health care providers, librarians, LGBTQ people, and institutions that have been harassed and violently threatened
Harassment and threats of violence against at least 48 institutions, events, or individuals have followed incitement from the social media account
Written by Alyssa Tirrell & Kayla Gogarty
Research contributions from Mia Gingerich, Sophie Lawton, Carly Evans & Ari Drennen
Published
Updated
Update (last updated 7/8/24): This article has been repeatedly updated with additional examples.
The account Libs of TikTok directs the anti-LGBTQ outrage of a large audience toward individual people and institutions, authoring posts that are regularly followed by harassment and threats of violence.
Bomb threats to hospitals and harassment against hospital staff have followed the account’s posts to social media. A similar relationship is apparent in a series of bomb threats, death threats, and harassment efforts against schools, libraries, and educators. The account has also seemingly inspired violent protests and threats to Pride events, drag shows, and drag queen story hours. Media Matters documented 38 institutions, events, and individuals who reported threats after being targeted by Libs of TikTok, and 10 who reported harassment — a total of at least 48 instances of threats or harassment.
Here’s a timeline of threats and harassment seemingly sparked by Libs of TikTok’s posts, as well as some background on the account and the right-wing websites that help to amplify its hate.
Select a topic
- Libs of TikTok directs the anti-LGBTQ outrage of a large audience toward individual people and institutions
- LoTT has scrutinized schools and educators, with some experiencing backlash.
- LoTT has been linked to backlash against hospitals and medical providers.
- The founder of LoTT has made false and inflammatory claims about LGBTQ people.
- Raichik has said she sees herself “as a journalist,” but she has promoted hoaxes and doctored footage.
- Raichik has mocked LGBTQ victims of violence and endorsed real-world harassment.
- Libs of TikTok’s posts were followed by harassment or threats against at least 29 schools, libraries, or educators
- LoTT targeted Greece Arcadia High School; the school reported a bomb threat.
- LoTT targeted Waterton Middle School; four schools in the district reported bomb threats.
- LoTT began targeting Schavey Road Elementary; the school reported threats against staff members.
- LoTT targeted Sutton Memorial High School; the principal reported harassment.
- LoTT targeted Niles Community Schools; three schools in the district were threatened.
- LoTT targeted a Northwest Independent School District teacher; the school reported a bomb threat.
- LoTT targeted a teacher in the Anchorage School District; the teacher and school principal reported threats.
- LoTT targeted the principal of Butler Middle School; the school reported multiple bomb and shooting threats.
- LoTT targeted Brookfield Public Schools in Connecticut; the district, town hall, and district employees reported bomb threats.
- LoTT targeted a teacher in the Lewisville Independent School District; the teacher resigned following online harassment.
- LoTT targeted a Des Moines Public Schools teacher; the district reported threats.
- LoTT targeted a North Carolina high school; the school reported threats.
- LoTT targeted Tigard-Tualatin School District; the district received bomb and shooting threats.
- LoTT targeted a professor at Fresno State University; the professor and school received bomb threats.
- LoTT targeted Denver Public Schools; the district received bomb threats.
- LoTT targeted Brownsville Elementary; the school received a bomb threat.
- LoTT targeted Cherry Creek School District; the district received bomb threats.
- LoTT targeted Pulaski High School; the school received bomb threats.
- LoTT targeted a Red Oak School classroom; the school reported multiple bomb threats.
- LoTT began targeting Anoka-Hennepin School District; the school received a bomb threat.
- LoTT targeted Witchcraft Heights Elementary School; the school received bomb threats.
- LoTT targeted the principal of a Western Heights elementary school; the district reported threats and the principal resigned.
- LoTT targeted Ellen Ochoa Elementary School; the school received bomb threats.
- LoTT and other right-wing figures targeted a public library in Davis, California; the library received a bomb threat.
- LoTT targeted an Owasso Public Schools teacher; the teacher reported death threats and resigned.
- LoTT targeted Northwest Junior High; the district received bomb threats.
- LoTT targeted Austin Independent School District; the district reported harassment.
- LoTT targeted a trans teacher; the teacher was harassed.
- LoTT began targeting Salem Keizer Public Schools; replies smeared the district.
- Libs of TikTok’s posts were followed by harassment or threats of violence against at least 10 hospitals or hospital staff
- LoTT highlighted an Oregon medical center; the hospital received a bomb threat.
- LoTT targeted a doctor at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s UW Health; the clinic reported harassment.
- LoTT targeted Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; the hospital reported receiving threats.
- LoTT targeted Akron Children’s Hospital; the hospital reported harassment.
- LoTT targeted Children’s National Hospital; the hospital reported threats.
- LoTT targeted a doctor at St. Louis Children’s Hospital; the doctor reported harassment.
- LoTT targeted the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh; the hospital reported harassment.
- LoTT targeted Boston Children’s Hospital; the hospital received violent threats.
- LoTT targeted Seattle Children’s Hospital; the hospital reported needing heightened security.
- LoTT targeted a Nebraska children’s hospital; the hospital reported threats.
- LoTT targeted Doernbecher Children’s Hospital; the hospital reported harassment.
- Libs of TikTok’s posts were followed by violent protests or threats against at least 9 Pride events, drag shows, drag queen story hours, or drag performers
- LoTT targeted Atrisco Heritage High School; the school reported death threats.
- LoTT targeted a drag story hour in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; the library reported a bomb threat and the event was canceled.
- LoTT shared a doctored video of a drag performer at a University of South Dakota event; the school received bomb threats.
- An Alabama outlet reported that LoTT had targeted a Huntsville animal shelter's drag queen story hour and that the shelter had received death threats.
- After LoTT targeted a Pride event in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, police arrested 31 members of an extremist group who were planning to riot at the event.
- LoTT targeted several drag performances in a mass thread; at least one event was threatened.
- LoTT targeted a drag queen for performing at a California charter school; the performer received death threats.
- LoTT targeted a drag queen story hour event at a library in North Carolina; the event was canceled following threats of violence.
- LoTT targeted a drag queen story hour event in San Lorenzo, California; the event was stormed.
- Libs of TikTok's anti-LGBTQ posts and blog are amplified on right-wing websites and across social media
- LoTT’s Substack articles, which target schools, events, and teachers, proliferate on social media
- Right-wing websites have amplified LoTT by mentioning the anti-LGBTQ group, its founder Chaya Raichik, or its website over 700 times so far this year
- Right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group plays a unique role in amplifying LoTT online
- Methodology
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Libs of TikTok directs the anti-LGBTQ outrage of a large audience toward individual people and institutions
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LoTT has scrutinized schools and educators, with some experiencing backlash.
In the first four months of 2022, LoTT targeted over 200 individual teachers, schools, and districts. A Media Matters review of the Twitter/X account found that LoTT tagged or named at least 222 schools, education organizations, or school system employees within the first four months of 2022, often directing users to harass an individual school district or teacher. [Media Matters, 4/28/22]
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LoTT has been linked to backlash against hospitals and medical providers.
A Human Rights Campaign December 2022 report on the link between online harassment and offline violence named LoTT as one of the accounts responsible for a “campaign of hate against hospitals and medical providers who offer gender-affirming care." The report found that “24 different hospitals and providers, across 21 states, … were directly attacked online following harassing, inflammatory and misleading posts,” some authored by LoTT. [Human Rights Campaign, 12/8/22]
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The founder of LoTT has made false and inflammatory claims about LGBTQ people.
In the interview on Fox Nation’s Tucker Carlson Today where she first revealed her identity, Chaya Raichik claimed that LGBTQ people are a “cult,” adding, “They’re just evil people. And they want to groom kids. They’re recruiting.” The following month, in another interview in the media tour prompted by her identity reveal, Raichik referred to trans women as “cheaper” and “knockoff versions” of cis women. [Media Matters, 1/18/23; The Daily Beast, 3/28/23]
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Raichik has said she sees herself “as a journalist,” but she has promoted hoaxes and doctored footage.
In one such instance, LoTT shared doctored video of an all-ages drag event to suggest a performer in a nude illusion (“layers of clothing designed to look like a naked person,” per LGBTQ Nation) had appeared in front of children. The University of South Dakota, whose LGBTQ student group had hosted the show, received an email claiming that bombs had been placed on the campus and threatening to harm potential survivors of the detonation. [Media Matters, 1/18/23; LGBTQ Nation, 12/16/22]
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Raichik has mocked LGBTQ victims of violence and endorsed real-world harassment.
Despite condemning violence in a comment to The Washington Post in September 2022, Raichik has celebrated and endorsed the harassment and threats that stem from her scrutiny. She also mocked a slain trans man, emphasizing that a report called him a “pregnant boyfriend.” [The Washington Post, 9/2/22; Advocate, 8/27/23; Media Matters, 4/28/22; Twitter/X, 6/15/22]
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Libs of TikTok’s posts were followed by harassment or threats against at least 29 schools, libraries, or educators
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LoTT targeted Greece Arcadia High School; the school reported a bomb threat.
LoTT reposted a video of a physical assault that allegedly took place in the women's bathroom at Greece Arcadia High School in upstate New York, and claimed that the perpetrator was “a male student who identifies as a girl.” The video, which was originally shared by Reduxx and was reportedly filmed in February, was boosted by other media figures who have also advocated for trans exclusion from women's spaces and garnered viral attention. The following morning, the school reported a bomb threat. A screenshot of the emailed bomb threat seemingly referenced the viral video and repeated the claim that one of the students in the video was transgender.
Greece Central School District Superintendent Kathleen Graupman, who characterized the bomb threat as “a hate crime,” said the district had taken “swift action” and dealt with the fight portrayed in the video “very specifically and sensitively” months earlier. [Twitter/X, 5/2/24, 5/2/24, 5/2/24; WHAM, 5/3/24; WHEC, 5/3/24]
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LoTT targeted Waterton Middle School; four schools in the district reported bomb threats.
Citing a Daily Mail article published a day earlier, LoTT claimed that students at Watertown Middle School in Massachusetts were “reportedly being forced back into the classroom with a trans student who wrote a 45-person ’hit list.’”
According to local reporting, the “hit list” was discovered in January, at which point the school notified local police who in turn determined there was no threat. Watertown News reported that the school held a meeting shortly after the list was discovered to address parents’ concerns before releasing additional information detailing how it responded to the incident, “including how the threat was assessed and the re-entry plan for the student who made the list.”
On April 30, less than a week after the Daily Mail article and LoTT post, four Watertown schools reported bomb threats. In a joint statement sent to Watertown News, the Watertown Public Schools and the Watertown Police Department said: “We believe that these bomb threats were the direct result of misinformation spread by a British tabloid and subsequently on social media by individuals outside of our community.” [Twitter/X, 4/26/24, 4/26/24; Daily Mail, 4/25/24; Watertown News, 5/1/24]
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LoTT began targeting Schavey Road Elementary; the school reported threats against staff members.
LoTT posted a screenshot of an email that had been sent to parents of Schavey Road Elementary School in DeWitt, Michigan, informing them of an optional lesson during which students would “share and explore pronouns through discussion and literature.” Two days later, LoTT posted a clip of an interview with a parent opposed to the lesson, but failed to highlight that the email said parents could opt their children out of the lesson. Amid viral backlash, the school “increased police and administrative presence” and staff members reported “inappropriate and threatening calls” and being doxxed. The lesson was eventually canceled, according to Superintendent Shanna Spickard of DeWitt Public Schools, because several staff members were “afraid to go to school.” LoTT responded to the initial post, noting that the event had been canceled. [Twitter/X, 4/15/24; Twitter/X, 4/17/24; Twitter/X, 4/19/24; USA Today, 4/19/24]
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LoTT targeted Sutton Memorial High School; the principal reported harassment.
On X, LoTT wrote that Sutton Memorial High School in Massachusetts had “held a s*xualized adult themed d*ag show and a workshop on how to be a d*ag queen for students,” tagging the school’s principal in the post. According to MassLive, the school principal later wrote an email to students in which he reported that the school had “received calls and posts online from individuals who protested the drag artist’s appearance and that the school also received a vague threat from an unknown person.” LoTT continued to post about the district and later celebrated that “the school board member of Sutton Schools who said d*ag in schools is OK just LOST his re-election campaign.” [Twitter/X, 4/2/24, 4/3/24, 5/7/24, 5/15/24, 5/29/24; MassLive, 4/9/24]
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LoTT targeted Niles Community Schools; three schools in the district were threatened.
LoTT posted a video of an elementary school student being physically assaulted on a school bus, tagging Niles Community Schools in Niles, Michigan, in the post. The next day, LoTT cited a previous post about the school district and implied that the assault was connected to the student attending an elementary school whose principal was a “radical leftist activist who injected gender-ideology and CRT into her school.” Three schools in the district, including the elementary school mentioned in the post, reported bomb threats. Additionally, a school in Niles, Illinois, also received a threat. [Twitter/X, 3/13/24, 3/14/24; Patch, 3/15/24; WBND-LD, 3/18/24]
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LoTT targeted a Northwest Independent School District teacher; the school reported a bomb threat.
LoTT posted about a teacher from Northwest ISD in North Texas, naming her for publicly supporting antifa and for hosting a “safe space in her class for LGBTQ+ students and allies.” According to local media, both the teacher's home and the Medlin Middle School campus where she teaches were targeted with bomb threats. [Twitter/X, 3/10/24; KERA, 3/18/24]
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LoTT targeted a teacher in the Anchorage School District; the teacher and school principal reported threats.
LoTT posted about a nonbinary teacher in Anchorage, Alaska, claiming that the teacher “wears tight dresses” and “has an onlyfans.” The district reported that threats “had been made against the principal and the teacher after the posts” and that the teacher had been placed on administrative leave. [Twitter/X, 3/6/24, 3/6/24; Anchorage Daily News, 3/8/24]
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LoTT targeted the principal of Butler Middle School; the school reported multiple bomb and shooting threats.
LoTT shared an April 2022 Facebook post by the principal of Butler Middle School in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in which the principal stated that “acceptance, equity, and inclusion should be the cornerstones of our schools” and shared a quote noting that “the purpose of a public education in a public school is not to teach kids only what parents want them to be taught” but to “teach them what society needs them to know.” Over the course of the following week, the school “experienced a series of bomb and school shooting threats.” [Twitter/X, 3/4/24; Facebook, 4/27/22; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3/18/24]
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LoTT targeted Brookfield Public Schools in Connecticut; the district, town hall, and district employees reported bomb threats.
LoTT posted a video of the Board of Education of Brookfield, Connecticut, voting to continue including the LGBTQ memoir Fun Home on school shelves. On the morning of March 8, the district, the town hall, “and the homes of at least two school district employees” reported bomb threats. Amid the threats, LoTT retweeted another video targeting the Board of Education. An email signed by “town and school officials” attributed the threats to “rhetoric that has circulated both locally and nationally in recent weeks.” [Twitter/X, 3/3/24, 3/8/24; The News-Times; 3/10/24; Connecticut Insider; 3/8/24]
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LoTT targeted a teacher in the Lewisville Independent School District; the teacher resigned following online harassment.
LoTT posted a video of Lewisville, Texas, teacher Rachmad Tjachyadi wearing a pink dress for Hebron High School’s Spirit Day. The post garnered significant backlash, including a statement from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who said, “No parent should be forced by the state to send their child to this school.” Despite the fact that “Tjachyadi hadn’t violated any policies with his choice of clothing,” he was placed on administrative leave and eventually resigned, citing “the hateful comments on social media.” LoTT took credit for and celebrated the resignation. [The Daily Beast, 3/7/24; The Advocate, 3/9/24]
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LoTT targeted a Des Moines Public Schools teacher; the district reported threats.
LoTT posted a screenshot from a Des Moines elementary school teacher's social media account. Harassment and threats reportedly followed the post and led the school district to increase its security. In a public statement, a Des Moines Public Schools spokesperson said, “In regard to security, because of harassment and even threats triggered due to an employee’s social media post, we have had to increase our public safety presence at a school and notify law enforcement.” [Twitter/X, 11/10/23; KGAN, 11/14/23]
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LoTT targeted a North Carolina high school; the school reported threats.
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LoTT targeted a professor at Fresno State University; the professor and school received bomb threats.
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LoTT targeted Denver Public Schools; the district received bomb threats.
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LoTT targeted Cherry Creek School District; the district received bomb threats.
LoTT published a piece on the account’s Substack claiming that Colorado’s Cherry Creek School District was offering pornography in school libraries to students and referring to the district as “groomers.” On September 22, a local news outlet reported to police that they had received an email stating that multiple bombs had been planted in several elementary schools and administrative buildings. [Sentinel Colorado, 9/28/23]
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LoTT targeted Pulaski High School; the school received bomb threats.
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LoTT began targeting Anoka-Hennepin School District; the school received a bomb threat.
LoTT posted about the district on September 13 and 14. The first tweet garnered over 26,000 interactions. The following day, the school received a bomb threat. [Twitter/X, 9/13/23; Vice, 10/4/23]
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LoTT targeted the principal of a Western Heights elementary school; the district reported threats and the principal resigned.
On August 30, 2023, LoTT targeted Shane Murnan, insinuating that there was a link between his performance as a drag queen and a previous accusation of possession of child sexual abuse material. The case against Munran was thrown out in 2002 due to lack of evidence and the record of charges was later expunged. The district maintained that Murnan had been hired “in accordance with its usual screening practices,” but Oklahoma State schools Superintendent Ryan Walters, who has since appointed Raichik to the state Department of Education’s Library Media Advisory Committee, called for Murnan's resignation and threatened the district's accreditation status. LoTT continued to target the district in a series of posts and the district received a bomb threat. After several months in which Murnan was “often forced to work off-site due to threats received by the district,” he went on paid administrative leave and then resigned. [Twitter/X, 8/30/23; Newsweek, 9/1/23; Vice, 10/4/23; The Oklahoman, 2/2/24]
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LoTT targeted Ellen Ochoa Elementary School; the school received bomb threats.
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LoTT targeted an Owasso Public Schools teacher; the teacher reported death threats and resigned.
In April 2022, LoTT reposted a video of Owasso, Oklahoma, public school teacher Tyler Wrynn telling students: “If your parents don’t accept you for who you are, fuck them.” The same day the post went viral, Wrynn resigned amid a flurry of harassment and death threats directed at him. In February 2024, Nex Benedict, a trans student who had “greatly admired” Wrynn, was beaten in a school bathroom by a group of older students and died the following day. Local LGBTQ advocacy groups called Benedict's death a “hate crime” and blamed LoTT and state lawmakers for promoting an atmosphere of bigotry and intolerance toward trans students. [Fox News 23, 4/14/22; OCPA, 4/29/22; Washington Post, 4/19/22; The Oklahoman, 2/20/24]
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LoTT targeted Northwest Junior High; the district received bomb threats.
LoTT posted about Northwest Junior High in Iowa, denouncing its library for housing a book with LGBTQ content. The school district received graphically anti-gay emails and a pair of bomb threats and eventually decided to remove the book from district collections. [Iowa City Press-Citizen, 3/30/23]
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LoTT targeted Austin Independent School District; the district reported harassment.
LoTT tweeted out false accusations that second-graders in the Austin Independent School District were learning about furries. Media Matters found that LoTT had tweeted about the district at least 18 times by that point, sometimes tagging individual employees. [Mashable, 4/26/22; Media Matters, 4/28/22]
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LoTT targeted a trans teacher; the teacher was harassed.
Raichik shared a video of the teacher explaining how he teaches his students about identity. Raichik tagged the teacher’s employer and included the teacher’s Instagram username in her tweets. Users replying to Libs of TikTok argued that the teacher should not be allowed to work with children and declared that he is “another groomer that needs to be arrested and jailed for abusing and trying to indoctrinate kids into the sickness.” [Twitter/X, 4/10/22; Media Matters, 4/28/22]
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LoTT began targeting Salem Keizer Public Schools; replies smeared the district.
From February 28 to April 5, 2022, LoTT tagged the Salem Keizer Public Schools in Oregon at least 12 times; replies smeared the district. Raichik targeted the district in part for announcing new policies that support trans students using chosen pronouns and bathrooms and for issuing pronoun pins to students and faculty. A tweet from the school system account drew hundreds of replies, many filled with anti-LGBTQ attacks and smears. [Media Matters, 4/22/22]
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Libs of TikTok’s posts were followed by harassment or threats of violence against at least 10 hospitals or hospital staff
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LoTT targeted a doctor at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s UW Health; the clinic reported harassment.
LoTT posted a thread that mischaracterized the gender-affirming surgeries performed by the co-director of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s UW Health gender services program; the clinic reported harassment. The thread, to which Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) also replied, was quickly followed by further misinformation, online harassment, and harassing phone calls to the clinic. The physician also reported being doxxed. [NBC, 10/7/22]
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LoTT targeted Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; the hospital reported receiving threats.
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LoTT targeted Akron Children’s Hospital; the hospital reported harassment.
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LoTT targeted Children’s National Hospital; the hospital reported threats.
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LoTT targeted a doctor at St. Louis Children’s Hospital; the doctor reported harassment.
LoTT posted a video of a doctor from the St. Louis Children’s Hospital and the Washington University Transgender Center describing the difference between biological sex and gender identity. According to the Human Rights Campaign, the doctor in the video began receiving “hateful and threatening messages via Twitter and her work email” within minutes of the post. [Human Rights Campaign, 12/8/22]
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LoTT targeted Boston Children’s Hospital; the hospital received violent threats.
Following posts about Boston Children's Hospital, members of far-right online forums suggested people “start executing these ‘doctors.’” From August 30, 2022, to November 16, 2022, Boston Children's Hospital reportedly received three bomb threats, including one in which the caller cited the hospital's gender-affirming care program. The threats were deemed credible by the FBI and later resulted in at least three separate charges. [Facebook, 8/11/22; Twitter/X, 8/16/22; Media Matters, 8/18/22; Vice, 8/17/22; NBC Boston, 9/28/23; Boston.com, 10/24/22; The Boston Globe, 11/16/22; NBC, 2/7/24]
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LoTT targeted Seattle Children’s Hospital; the hospital reported needing heightened security.
The clinic was targeted on July 18, 2022, and seemingly in response to the post, the gender clinic at the hospital installed a panic button and hired a full-time security guard. Media Matters could not source reporting that the clinic was harassed or threatened, so it has not been included in the total incidents of threats and harassment reported in this publication. [Twitter/X, 7/18/22; Politico, 4/23/23]
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Libs of TikTok’s posts were followed by violent protests or threats against at least 9 Pride events, drag shows, drag queen story hours, or drag performers
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LoTT targeted Atrisco Heritage High School; the school reported death threats.
LoTT reposted a video of a drag performance from the Atrisco Heritage High School prom in Albuquerque, New Mexico, claiming that the school “had a d*ag queen stripper perform a provocative s*xually explicit routine for kids.” The New York Times reported that the school district had installed a new acting principal and placed other staff on leave as it investigated the incident. The drag performer depicted in the video later told the Times that they had received hateful messages and death threats after the recording spread online. Local law enforcement said it was in contact with federal law enforcement as it investigated threats against “multiple parties in relation to Atrisco Heritage High School.” [Twitter/X, 4/24/24, 4/26/24; NYT, 4/30/24]
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LoTT targeted a drag story hour in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; the library reported a bomb threat and the event was canceled.
LoTT posted about a drag queen who was scheduled to perform a drag story hour at the Lancaster Public Library in Pennsylvania. The post asked whether “this is the kind of person you want to be interacting with your toddlers” and included screenshots promoting a different, 18+ story hour which featured the phrase “nothing about this show is appropriate for your semen demon offspring.” On the day of the event, a “suspicious package” was found in the library and threats were reported, prompting police to evacuate the surrounding blocks. Although the area was later cleared, the event was canceled and police continued to investigate “additional reported threats.” LoTT quoted the initial post and reported that the event had been canceled. The Lancaster County District Attorney's Office investigation later concluded that the threats had originated from an “unknown actor” in Nigeria. [Twitter/X, 3/13/24, 3/23/24; Facebook, accessed 3/27/24; The Associated Press, 3/23/24; WHP, 6/25/24]
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LoTT shared a doctored video of a drag performer at a University of South Dakota event; the school received bomb threats.
The video combined footage of an all-ages drag performance with footage from a previous adults-only event in order to make it appear as though a performer in a nude illusion had performed in front of children. The school received an email that targeted the LGBTQ student group that hosted the event, claiming bombs had been placed on the campus and threatening to harm potential survivors of the detonation. [LGBTQ Nation, 12/16/22]
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An Alabama outlet reported that LoTT had targeted a Huntsville animal shelter's drag queen story hour and that the shelter had received death threats.
LoTT reposted a video of an Alabama teacher reading in drag to a group of students at a local animal shelter and accused the performer of making lewd jokes. The teacher and the shelter reported a series of death threats and bomb threats to local police and the FBI. The teacher was also placed on leave. [KATV, 10/18/22; AL.com, 10/12/22]
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After LoTT targeted a Pride event in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, police arrested 31 members of an extremist group who were planning to riot at the event.
LoTT and other right-wing figures targeted a drag event at Coeur d'Alene Pride in Idaho and later spread doctored footage of the event, even after the video had been debunked. Following LoTT’s post, the event was targeted by members of the Patriot Front, 31 of whom were arrested. The performer depicted in the video faced threats of violence and was eventually awarded $1.1 million in a defamation suit against the blogger who originally produced the footage. [Media Matters, 9/29/22; The Associated Press, 5/25/24]
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LoTT targeted several drag performances in a mass thread; at least one event was threatened.
LoTT posted what the account referred to as a “MEGA DRAG THREAD,” in which it shared at least 35 events featuring drag queens and accused event organizers of “trying to confuse, corrupt, or sexualize kids.” Twitter, now X, removed the first post of the thread, but left other posts targeting specific events or individuals on the platform. The Proud Boys threatened to disrupt at least one of the events highlighted in the thread, a June 30 drag performance in Woodland, California, and it was canceled. [Media Matters, 6/15/22; The Sacramento Bee, 7/1/22]
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LoTT targeted a drag queen story hour event at a library in North Carolina; the event was canceled following threats of violence.
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LoTT targeted a drag queen story hour event in San Lorenzo, California; the event was stormed.
The event was stormed by men believed to be members of the Proud Boys, who issued threats to patrons. [Media Matters, 6/13/22]
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Libs of TikTok's anti-LGBTQ posts and blog are amplified on right-wing websites and across social media
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LoTT’s Substack articles, which target schools, events, and teachers, proliferate on social media
Using NewsWhip, Media Matters found that Libs of TikTok has published at least 47 articles since January 1, 2023, on its Substack, earning over 95,000 interactions on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. The articles include “BREAKING: Mayor of Burbank gets spanking from drag queen at campaign event,” “SCOOP: Missouri middle schools took students to drag show without parental consent,” and “‘Black supremacist’ teacher with history of racist tweets is fired after bragging that she wouldn't get fired.” On Facebook, posts with the 47 articles earned over 21,000 likes, comments, and shares, and Twitter influencers shared the article over 74,000 times.
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Right-wing websites have amplified LoTT by mentioning the anti-LGBTQ group, its founder Chaya Raichik, or its website over 700 times so far this year
Media Matters found that right-wing websites have amplified Libs of TikTok over 700 times, earning over 217,000 interactions on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Some of the right-wing websites that most frequently mentioned Libs of TikTok included Rumble, Twitchy, Conservative Angle, TheBlaze, and Fox News.
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Right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group plays a unique role in amplifying LoTT online
Sinclair Broadcast Group’s national program The National Desk and its 70 local stations accounted for 35% of the more than 700 articles that mentioned Libs of TikTok and were published on right-wing websites. For example, two articles that embedded posts from Libs of TikTok — “FACT CHECK: Does an Oklahoma elementary school principal moonlight as a drag queen?” and “University of Arizona nursing students taught to ask 3-year-olds about gender identity, report says” were both published dozens of times by the network of websites. [The National Desk, 9/1/23, 9/8/23]
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Methodology
Using NewsWhip, Media Matters compiled all articles that were published between January 1, 2023, and September 22, 2023, and mentioned any of the following keywords affiliated with Libs of TikTok anywhere in the article: “libs of tiktok,” “libsoftiktok,” “libs of tik tok,” “@libsoftiktok,” “libsoftiktok.com,” “Chaya Raichik,” or “Raichik.”
Three researchers independently assessed the website of these articles for two factors: (1) whether the website targeted a U.S. audience and (2) whether the website’s ideological alignment was right-leaning. Each website was reviewed individually and given a final code if two of the three researchers independently awarded it the same code.
To be considered as targeting a U.S. audience, a website had to: be written in English, not have any non-U.S. country extensions in the outlet name or its domain, and have an about page that did not suggest it was focused on international news.
We determined the right-leaning ideological alignment by looking at whether the website was affiliated with right-wing media outlets or figures, or looking to see if an ideology was clearly stated in a website’s title or about page. We coded websites as right-leaning if they identified as Republican, conservative, right or right-leaning, pro-Trump, pro-Second Amendment rights, pro-life, pro-Confederacy, or libertarian. If the website’s most recent 3-5 articles clearly expressed a right-leaning ideology, the website was coded accordingly.
We reviewed data on the resulting list of articles and used NewsWhip’s definitions of interactions.