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I've probably been the top sunscreen mythbuster online for the last decade, so I have thoughts! It's super cool that sunscreen misinfo is being formally studied! Big props to the authors for recognising this problem. But there's misinfo in the paper, and IMO the main claims aren't well-supported…

CLAIM 1 "Overall, the dominant narrative on TikTok promotes sunscreen use" "Our findings indicate that [sunscreen misinformation] constitutes a small portion of the most viewed videos" They estimate only 1.5% of highly viewed sunscreen TikToks state it causes harm.

I don't think 1.5% passes a sniff test for what's seen on TikTok. Quick example: CBC News showed this TikTok screenshot when they covered this study… 3 out of the 4 top videos that came up when searching "sunscreen" suggest chemical sunscreens are toxic - pretty far from 1.5%.

ISSUE 2 This is more subtle - I'd guess only TikTok creators who do sponsorships are really aware of it: The view count used in the study included boosted views. "Boosting" is when a brand pays $$$ for a video to get more views from a target audience (location, age, gender, interests etc).

Brands often boost videos they paid creators to make (ads), plus their own posts. I didn't realise this was an issue until I saw the SI… Of the top 10 videos in their dataset: 6 = clearly disclosed ads 2 = posts from brands 1 = likely undisclosed ad Only 1 was likely organic (regular) content.

i.e. 8 or 9 out of the top 10 posts were boosted. This is because only the top video from each creator was included in the analysis. It's almost impossible for a creator's top video to be a clearly disclosed ad without boosting. Sponsored posts almost always get low engagement and low reach.