Inside ‘harmful’ national rape day TikTok hoax

Thousands of users on TikTok are warning of a “national rape day” – but there’s a dangerous issue with the rumour.

Inside ‘harmful’ national rape day TikTok hoax. Picture: TikTok

If TikTok is to be believed, women should “stay indoors” and “carry what you got to carry” on April 24 – a day when thousands of users warn “it’s legal to sexually assault anybody”.

“I need to make sure you guys are aware, that there is a video going around on TikTok of disgusting men, rapists, child molesters, predators, just disgusting human beings – and they literally came up with a date to go around and rape women and children,” one woman said, in a clip stamped with the caption: “PLEASE SHARE AND STAY SAFE.”

“You guys, stay indoors. I know it happens every day, but they are literally making this date especially for that. Carry what you got to carry cause I think the f**k not. Stay safe, share this.”

The prospect of a ‘national rape day’ is terrifying. It’s also unquestionably false.

The earliest mention of it on social media, according to America’s Media Matters, is a tweet from April 11, 2021, reading: “Please if you are in the UK, be safe, the boys have made a ‘national rape day’ and that’s tomorrow.”

The earliest mention of a ‘National Rape Day’ on social media, according to America’s Media Matters, was a tweet from April 11, 2021. Picture: Media Matters

From there, the concept took hold on TikTok – though the date was changed to April 24 – with thousands of users warning against large groups of men, alleging they had stated in a video on the platform they planned to sexually assault women en masse.

That same month, it was debunked as a hoax, with TikTok unable to find any record of the initial video existing.

Yet two years on, the hashtag ‘April 24’ has prevailed, with reaction videos warning women to stay at home and arm themselves in self-defence, drumming up hundreds of thousands of views and littering the For You Pages (FYP) of users worldwide, including in Australia.

Thousands of male and female TikTok users have sent out the warnings. Picture: TikTok

A spokesperson for TikTok Australia told news.com.au the platform has “not found any evidence of the videos [of men] that users are reacting to”.

“Keeping our community safe is our top priority and we actively remove content that violates our community guidelines. Our safety team remains vigilant and we will remove content that violates our policies,” they said.

“To help create a welcoming environment, we have developed sexual assault resources with guidance from experts including 1800 RESPECT in Australia and Safe to Talk in New Zealand, which can be found in our Safety Centre.”

TikTok’s community guidelines clearly state that content which promotes, normalises, or glorifies non-consensual sexual acts or non-consensual touching, including rape and sexual assault, are strictly prohibited and will be promptly removed. If a user searches ‘national rape day’ on the platform, they’ll be met with a page directing them to educational resources and the 1800 RESPECT hotline.

But according to FullStop Australia CEO Hayley Foster, the fact that a ‘national rape day’ is “something that is believable is a reflection of the continuing power imbalances that exist, and that rape myths and victim blaming are alive and well”.

The warnings are all over the social media platform. Picture: TikTok

Two years after it revealed to be a hoax, it’s still doing the rounds. Picture: TikTok

The ‘national rape day’ hoax capitalises on legitimate fears of sexual assault, and perpetuates the harmful myths surrounding it, as well as gendered violence, she told news.com.au.

Ms Foster pointed to a study by the Australian Research Organisation for Women’s Safety, which found one in three Aussies think that, a lot of times, women who say they were raped had led the man on and then had regrets.

“On the flip side of this, we also know that sexual violence is endemic. For example, half of women in their 20s have experienced sexual violence,” she said.

The “discourse around the day”, Ms Foster explained, is also harmful because it “misrepresents what rape often actually looks like”. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown that for women, the most common perpetrator of sexual assault is an intimate partner, “not a stranger in some dark alley”.

“The perpetrator is usually someone you know – [so a trend like this] makes it more difficult for people to recognise when rape and sexual violence does occur to them,” she said.

“It is really harmful because there is this level of paranoia and anxiety around the day now and it’s a valid reaction to what they are hearing – but it is not a reflection of what we know about sexual violence.

“It also plays into a number of the primary drivers of violence against women, namely, the condoning of such violence and male-to-male peer relations and cultures of masculinity that emphasise aggression, dominance and control.”

A spokesperson for TikTok Australia told news.com.au the platform has ‘not found any evidence of the videos that users are reacting to’. Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Speaking to VICE in 2021, disinformation journalist Laura Garcia said: “These types of reaction videos lack the crucial context and they end up being very misleading, despite containing kernels of truth.”

What the entire trend shows, Ms Foster said, “is that many men still see women as sexual objects whose interests are subordinate to theirs”.

“If we want to change the state of play, we, each of us, need to step up and speak out when we see something that is disrespectful, degrading and violence-supportive. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.”

Originally published as Inside ‘harmful’ national rape day TikTok hoax