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Libs of TikTok

Libs of TikTok is the username of various American anti-LGBTQ and far-right social-media accounts operated by Chaya Raichik, a former real estate agent. Raichik uses the accounts to repost content from left-wing and LGBTQ people on TikTok or other social-media platforms, often with mocking or derogatory commentary. With millions of followers on Twitter, Raichik is influential among American conservatives and the political right.

History
Inception and original content (November 2020 – June 2021) In November 2020, Raichik created a Twitter account with the handle @shaya69830552, later changed to @shaya_ray. According to The Daily Dot, the account began as "reply account that routinely showed up in the comments of prominent conservatives on Twitter." Under these handles, Raichik downplayed the severity of COVID-19, promoted the disproven conspiracy theory that the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump through election fraud, and made posts showing that she was present at the January 6 Capitol attack. Raichik criticized Capitol Police. She tweeted that she did not enter the Capitol building like "a few crazy people" had, and called the breach "mostly peaceful", and she later favorably compared the attack to a Black Lives Matter protest. She later changed the handle to @cuomomustgo, focusing on demanding the resignation of then-governor of New York Andrew Cuomo following the sexual harassment allegations levied against him. Raichik also used the account to advocate for the recall of California governor Gavin Newsom. By March 2021, the handle had changed to @houseplantpotus, a parody account tweeting as a houseplant in the White House during the presidency of Joe Biden. On April 19, 2021, Raichik adopted the moniker @libsoftiktok, promising to "help you find your daily dose of cringe". Prior to being revealed as the account creator, Raichik was interviewed anonymously on several occasions, during which she boasted that posts from the account led to the firings of several teachers. Raichik encouraged followers to join local school boards in order to remove teachers who teach about gender and sexuality. On April 19, 2022, The Washington Post published an article by journalist Taylor Lorenz which further reported on Raichik's identity, noting that she worked in real estate in Brooklyn and that she was "proudly" Orthodox Jewish, details were scraped from early iterations of the Libs of TikTok Twitter account. Conservatives criticized Lorenz for her methods in reporting, for revealing Raichik's identity at all, for claims of antisemitism (having repeated Raichik's claim regarding her faith), and for hypocrisy (having previously spoken out against online harassment). Some accused her of doxxing Raichik, though Lorenz countered that the information was already publicly available. Raichik personally accused Lorenz of doxxing though she vowed to "never be silenced". Lorenz also reported that she faced personal backlash, noting that, in response to the article, her "whole family" had been doxxed, and that "trolls [then] moved on to doxxing and stalking any random friends I've tagged on Instagram". The Libs of TikTok account gained 200,000 followers the day after The Washington Post's story was published. Lorenz arranged an interview two years after The Washington Post article, during which Raichik argued against gender-affirming care and discussed whether Raichik considered herself a public figure after being outed. ==Content==
Content
Libs of TikTok has been described as right-wing, and extremist. The Times of London described the account as a "Twitter provocateur". The reposted videos are most often LGBTQ-related. Pride events in Dallas and Coeur d'Alene were also targeted by right-wing extremists after Libs of TikTok posted about them; at the Coeur d'Alene event, 31 Patriot Front members were arrested before getting to their destination. In June, a spokesperson for the Alameda County Sheriff's Office said investigators believe that the Proud Boys confrontation was caused by Libs of TikTok. In August, NPR reported that "no conclusive link between the posts and the extremist groups' activities" had been established. The Proud Boys have also targeted or threatened to target other events Libs of TikTok has publicized, including a Woodland, California, bar's drag happy hour (which Raichik said was hosted by a "youth group" for "all ages"), a drag brunch planned to benefit a local LGBTQ resource center in Sanford, North Carolina, and a drag-queen story hour that was planned (and then cancelled) by a K-5 school in Columbus, Ohio. In November, a South Dakota State University LGBTQ student group was the target of a bomb threat being investigated by the University Police Department, after Libs of TikTok posted alleged footage of that year's annual drag event, which was advertised as all-ages. The student group and the performer at the center of the event said Libs of TikTok's video spliced together scenes of that year's event with the previous year's event, which had been age-restricted. In May 2023, it was reported that the shooter responsible for the Allen, Texas shooting had dedicated to Libs of TikTok a long screed he posted to social media denouncing Drag Queen Story Hour. Gender-affirming-care-related content , which was targeted by Libs of TikTok with false claims about the hospital's gender-affirming care Raichik opposes gender-affirming surgery on children, arguing that it is mass scale child abuse and that "[a]ny doctor performing these surgeries should have their license revoked. They belong in prison". In August 2022, on Libs of TikTok social-media accounts, Raichik claimed that Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) and Children's National Hospital (CNH) were providing gender-affirming bottom surgeries to minors. NPR, concluded that BCH claim was false. The CNH content was an audio recording with two operators who stated that 16-year-old trans boys would be eligible for hysterectomies at the hospital. CNH denied the operators' statements and noted that "[n]one of the people who were secretly recorded by this activist group deliver care to our patients". Both hospitals' websites featured mistaken information as to the eligibility for gender-affirming bottom surgeries: A public-facing file on BCH's website said that vaginoplasty patients must be "between 17 and 35 years of age at the time of surgery"; when asked about this document, the hospital explained that it had since been updated to reflect the protocol it said it had "always adhered to"—that, while consultations were available to 17 year olds, only those over 18 were eligible for the surgery. NBC News described Libs of TikTok as "one of the primary drivers of the harassment campaign" against BCH. The threats of violence were widely denounced, and both state authorities launched investigations into the threats. When contacted by The Washington Post, Raichik did not answer a question about whether she felt responsible for the threats against the hospitals, but said that "we 100% condemn any acts/threats of violence". In a later tweet, Raichik said that she would continue to call out hospitals, and, in the aftermath of the CNH tweets, after which Twitter temporarily suspended the Libs of TikTok account, Raichik said, "Getting suspended by Twitter has only made me realize my biggest mistake. I only called one hospital I should have called dozens because I promise you Children's National is not the only one. I promise to learn from my mistake and uncover more of what our Big Tech overlords don't want us to know. I will do better in the future." and Barbara Bush Children's Hospital providing non-surgical gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers, to minors. In response to the social-media attention, which included threats, Akron Children's Hospital temporarily took down the gender-affirming care section of their website and information about its employees and the care they provide. In September 2022, in response to Libs of TikTok's posts, Lurie Children's Hospital increased its security and moved a transgender youth support group from in-person meetings to online meetings. Teaching-related content Teachers supporting LGBTQ students have been noted as one of the "most frequent" targets of the Libs of TikTok account. Several of the teachers targeted have reported harassment and death threats. According to a report by the left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters for America, between January and April 2022, the account named or tagged around 222 educational institutions and teachers. On November 16, 2021, an assistant professor at Old Dominion University was placed on administrative leave after an interview in which the professor argued that pedophilia should be destigmatized was posted on the Libs of TikTok account and went viral. On November 24, the professor resigned from their position. A teacher in California was placed on administrative leave after a video she posted joking about asking her students to pledge allegiance to a Pride flag was reposted by Libs of TikTok on August 27, 2021. After conservative and far-right accounts attacked her on social media, she deleted all of her social media accounts. Oklahoma Republican Senate candidate Jackson Lahmeyer accused the teacher of being a "predator". Educational facilities and bomb threats Multiple educational facilities and institutions that were featured in posts by Libs of TikTok have reported receiving bomb threats afterwards. When contacted by Vice, Raichik stated that "the threats had nothing to do with her or her followers." According to an October 2023 report by Vice, out of 42 establishments featured in Libs of TikTok posts that Vice contacted, 11 schools and school districts had reported receiving bomb threats. Although a direct connection between Libs of TikTok's posts and the threats were not made, some have found the nature of these threats to be unusual. After the video was shared, both Ellen Ochoa Elementary School and the librarian's home received multiple bomb threats. Bombing threats were accompanied by letters to media threatening to bomb "every school in the union district", unless the schools stopped "pushing this woke ideology". In August 2023, Libs of TikTok accused a California elementary school of being "racist against white people". The next day, a bomb threat was emailed to the school and it was evacuated; local police described the email as having "racial undertones". Around the same time, a library in Davis, California, became the target of bomb threats after Libs of TikTok tweeted about an event in the establishment which resulted in a group of speakers being asked to leave over speech that was hostile towards trans athletes. According to local police, the threats were laden with hate speech of some kind. In September 2023, a school in Illinois received three bomb threats in four days after Libs of TikTok posted a picture of one of its classrooms where a Pride flag was hanging. The school evacuated students twice, on consecutive days, after the threats were received. In November 2023, Raichik posted an image of herself smiling with a copy of USA Today featuring the front-page headline "When Libs of TikTok posts, threats increasingly follow". Will Carless, the reporter who wrote the piece, reported experiencing "harassment, bomb threats and death threats dozens of times". In February 2024, NBC News reported 33 instances of violent threats being made against individuals or organizations that Libs of TikTok had previously posted about since November 2020, twenty of which were bomb threats. The report further commented saying, "the timing suggests that Libs of TikTok posts have been used to pick targets." In at least three instances, those bomb threats led to criminal charges against at least nine individuals. In since-deleted tweets, the account specifically accused Chasten Buttigieg and The Trevor Project organization of grooming. The account argued in another since-deleted tweet that any teacher who comes out as gay to their students should be fired. The account has also posted, or been accused of posting, edited footage of drag events, in one case resulting in bomb threats against the audience and the performer in North Dakota, Libs of TikTok has denied the existence of systemic racism, but argued that racism against white people was "flourishing" in the United States. After the video went viral, ASU investigated and then reprimanded the two female students. a mass killing that took place at an LGBTQ venue in which five people were killed and dozens more were injured. Club Q, the venue targeted by the shooter, frequently hosts drag events, including those advertised to an all-ages audience. The Independent noted that Libs of TikTok often attracts negative attention to such events with her social media accounts and that harassment and threats are often sent by her followers against patrons and performers following her postings. The Advocate criticized the post, saying that: "In the hours after news of the Club Q shooting spread, Raichik, for example, doubled down on her anti-LGBTQ+ messaging by posting about other drag-inclusive events in the state." They drew attention to an interview previously published on their website with Juliette Kayyem, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, in which she stated that social media accounts such as Libs of TikTok practice stochastic terrorism by provoking extremist outrage against marginalized groups, but using "vague language that allows the agitator to deny responsibility for the act". ==Account suspensions==
Account suspensions
Twitter Twitter has temporarily suspended the Libs of TikTok account five times, At least two of the suspensions stemmed from Raichik misgendering persons in tweets. Libs of TikTok received a one-week suspension from Twitter and claimed that Twitter did not cite a reason for the suspension. However, The Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon said that Libs of TikTok was suspended for "hateful conduct" with "no specific tweets [being] flagged". Conversely, Evan Urquhart of Slate argued that Weiss' own publishing revealed that Libs of TikTok was receiving preferential treatment, with moderators directed not to take any action against the account and to instead elevate issues to higher management. Urquhart further argued that Weiss' portrayal of Libs of TikTok dangerously conflated conservative opinions with stochastic terrorism and extremism. Bluesky Libs of TikTok joined the social media platform Bluesky in late November among millions of users who joined the platform from Twitter as a result of the 2024 United States presidential election. The account was reportedly suspended after nine days on the platform on December 2, 2024. In a statement to The Advocate, a spokesperson for media watchdog GLAAD praised the account's removal: "Social media platforms have hate speech policies for a reason — to maintain a safe environment for all users, and advertisers, and especially to protect historically marginalized groups, such as LGBTQ people, who are disproportionately targeted with hate and harassment." Other platforms Libs of TikTok had an account on TikTok itself, but it was suspended for violating TikTok's community guidelines in March 2022. Facebook said it was suspended in error an action that the LGBTQ organization GLAAD criticized. Activists campaigned for e-commerce platform Shopify to drop Libs of TikTok's store, claiming that it violated the platform's acceptable use policy which bans hateful content and goods and services that lead to harassment and threats. In a statement, Shopify defended Libs of TikTok, saying that "We host businesses of all stripes and sizes, with various worldviews". ==Impact==
Impact
Political impact Florida governor Ron DeSantis's press secretary Christina Pushaw credited the account for "opening her eyes" on the current state of education around sexuality- and LGBTQ-related topics. Libs of TikTok was one of the top-ten most influential Twitter accounts in promoting use of the pejorative term groomer after the passage of Florida's Parental Rights in Education bill, according to a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Human Rights Campaign. Raichik uses the term as a pejorative for LGBTQ people, supporters of LGBTQ youth, Harassment and threats According to a report by Advance Democracy Inc., tweets by Libs of TikTok result in a spike in mentions of specific hospitals and doctors across Twitter. In many of the mentions, doctors are referred to as "child molesters", "pedos", "groomers", and "butchers". In July 2022, OutLoud North Bay, a centre for LGBTQ youth in Ontario, received hate messages and death threats after Libs of TikTok posted tweets in response to the centre announcing a drag show for all ages. Also in July, Libs of TikTok made a tweet criticizing the Conservative Jewish camping network, Camp Ramah in Northern California, for "housing kids according to their gender identity rather than birth sex". On August 10, 2022, Libs of TikTok reposted a video of a therapist who works with sex offenders who have been jailed. In the video, the therapist says their pronouns and advises people to use the term "minor-attracted persons" (MAPs) instead of "pedophiles", arguing that the latter term has "moved from being a diagnostic label to being a judgmental, hurtful insult that we hurl at people in order to harm them or slander them". They also argue that pedophiles do not choose their attraction to children and should not be solely defined by that one aspect of themselves. Libs of TikTok only posted the first two minutes of the video, which made it sound like the therapist was advocating for acceptance of pedophilia and for people to be nicer to child sex abusers. In the full version of the video, the therapist condemns child sex abuse crimes. Libs of TikTok's reposted video has been promoted by Russian and European disinformation networks, such as Tsargrad TV. Michael O'Brien, a pediatrics resident at a hospital in South Carolina, said that he received threats after Libs of TikTok, on August 15, retweeted a tweet in which he had criticized the account. O'Brien reported some of the threats to his employer's public safety office: "I got three specific threats that came from within a 50-mile radius of where I live", adding that "The threats felt very tangible. I had to take action to protect my partner and warn my family." On September 23, 2022, a two-minute video of Dr. Katherine Gast (co-director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's UW Health gender services program) describing gender-affirming surgeries was reposted by Libs of TikTok with the caption: "Gast happily describes some of the "gender affirming" surgeries she offers to adolescents including vaginoplasties, phalloplasties, and double mastectomies." In August 2025, Libs of TikTok falsely claimed that Connecticut state representative Corey Paris had doxxed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, resulting in racist threats against him. After analyzing Libs of TikTok's online activity in April 2022 through November 2022, a counter-extremism research group named "Task Force Butler Institute" estimated Raichik singled out a specific event, location or person over 280 times, resulting in 66 incidents of harassment or threats against her targets. In the aftermath of the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, Libs of TikTok doxxed individuals who criticized immigration authorities or expressed sympathy for Good or Pretti, "in a seeming attempt to punish them, either by public harassment or professional retaliation". ==Reception==
Reception
Response to account content The account has been described as promoting harassment against and criticizing teachers, medical providers, and children's hospitals. It has also been described as spreading misinformation and disinformation by reposting videos clips of teachers, LGBTQ people, schools and other institutions out of context and with incendiary framing. Kylie Cheung of Jezebel argued that "Deplatforming hateful accounts like LibsOfTikTok whose online attacks can clearly, quickly escalate into real-life threats is an important step. But it's clear we're in the midst of a terrifying, broader anti-LGBTQ moment right now that's being fueled by pretty much every right-wing media outlet as well as top Republicans." Reina Sultan of Them argued that "social media platforms are not doing enough, not only to limit Libs of TikTok's ability to spread hate, but also to protect LGBTQ+ people in general." Meredithe McNamara, assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale University, argued that "allowing this hate speech to fester on the internet and fuel direct threats is going to create long standing harms that are difficult to recover from". Kat Rosenfield of UnHerd called The Washington Post article "an unmasking worthy of a demented superhero story", adding that "it's hard to know what Libs of TikTok's greater sin is: being wrong, or being popular." Dan McLaughlin of National Review argued that identity reveals like that of Libs of TikTok have "become standard practice for major media reporters who do stories on people on the right who can be framed as 'extremists.'" Kara Alaimo, a Hofstra University professor and former Obama administration staffer writing for NBC News, dismissed criticism regarding identifying the individual running the account, arguing that "the people in need of protection here are those who are being targeted with hate simply because of their identities not the people who are hurling the abuse, like Raichik." Writing about the revealing of Raichik's identity, Kaitlyn Tiffany of The Atlantic argued that "where the term [doxxing] once defined a category, it now expresses an emotion. Whoever feels doxxed will claim to have been doxxed." Commentator and conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec tweeted: "This isn't journalism. This is doxxing and smearing of Libs of TikTok by the billionaire-controlled Bezos Post". In April 2022, another Orthodox Jew also named Chaya Raichik, a stay-at-home mom who grew up in Los Angeles, received hundreds of negative messages from people who mistook her for the person behind Libs of TikTok. Also in April, YouTuber Tim Pool and The Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing purchased a billboard in Times Square to accuse Lorenz of doxxing Libs of TikTok. In response, Lorenz called the billboard "so idiotic it's hilarious." Classifications of extremism In March 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) added Chaya Raichik to their hate watchlist as an anti-LGBTQ extremist. The entry describes Raichik as having engaged in an "anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation campaign" that "mobilizes right-wing extremist groups in violent attacks against LGBTQ+ people, spaces and events, as well as against doctors, hospitals, librarians, libraries, teachers and schools." ==Other media involvement by Raichik==
Other media involvement by Raichik
Television appearance Raichik made her first-ever in-person televised appearance on the December 27, 2022, episode of Tucker Carlson Today. In the episode, she stated, "The LGBTQ community has become this cult, and it's so captivating, and it pulls people in so strongly... They're just evil. They're bad people. They're just evil people, and they want to groom kids. They're recruiting." Following her appearance, some news outlets have linked her to a person who may have trespassed on federal property during the January 6 United States Capitol attack. Children's book In 2023, Raichik announced her children's picture book No More Secrets: The Candy Cavern, whose publisher is Brave Books. Promoted as "a modern twist to the familiar Grimm's-style fairy tale", the book is about a lamb named Rose who becomes suspicious when her second-grade teacher focuses more on candy than education. It reflects the LGBTQ grooming conspiracy theory; Raichik intended the book for helping children and their parents identify "predatory" behavior. Brave Books' storytime event which was to star Raichik and promote the book was canceled due to threats they viewed as dangerous. Political appointments In January 2024, Raichik was appointed as an adviser to the Oklahoma State Library Committee, despite not being an Oklahoma resident, a librarian, or an educator. The committee is tasked with reviewing material reported to them and advising schools on age appropriate media. ==See also==
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