Sunscreen is overwhelmingly promoted on TikTok, but content with misinformation exhibits proportionally high levels of audience interaction

Abstract

This study examined the presence, engagement levels, and characteristics of sunscreen-related misinformation on TikTok. We conducted a content analysis on 971 of the most viewed TikTok videos across the five most popular and relevant sunscreen-related hashtags (#sunscreen, #sunscreenviral, #spf, #sunscreenreview, and #sunprotection). To assess differences in audience engagement (views, likes, shares, and comments) between TikToks that only promoted sunscreen, those that included both promotion and critique, and those that solely critiqued sunscreen, we used Kruskal-Wallis tests and Dunn’s post hoc tests with a Bonferroni adjustment. Most videos promoted sunscreen use (86.8%), typically to prevent skin damage (17.4%), acne (15.3%), aging (11.5%), and cancer (6.1%). Only a small fraction contained critiques (6.0%), with very few asserting sunscreen causes harm (1.5%) or prevents health benefits (1.2%). While differences in view counts were not statistically significant (p=0.182), TikToks with only critique showed significantly higher engagement in likes (p=0.0069), shares (p=0.0028), and comments (p=0.0012) compared to those with only promotion. Contrary to claims that TikTok is rife with sunscreen misinformation, our findings indicate that such content constitutes a small portion of the most viewed videos. However, these critique focused TikToks, despite being few, consistently generated significantly more audience interaction. This suggests that critical or contrarian content may attract disproportionate attention even when not widely represented. Overall, the dominant narrative on TikTok promotes sunscreen use, and widespread misinformation does not appear prevalent among the platform’s most visible content. Therefore, sunscreen misinformation on TikTok constitutes an area of concern not for the total sum of overarching influence in terms of content production but rather in how strongly some sunscreen misinformation ideas resonated among particular audiences.