Who is Savannah Sparks? TikToker going viral by calling out healthcare misinformation
TikTok: Savannah SparksA TikTok user, who also works as a doctor, has gone viral on the app after calling out other users for spreading misinformation around the current health crisis.
Savannah Sparks, a 31-year-old doctor based in Mississippi, goes by the TikTok handle ‘r0xorcist’ on the platform. As a medical professional and self-professed advocate of “call-out culture”, Sparks has made it her mission to hold people spreading misinformation about the current situation to account.
She does this as part of a tongue-in-cheek series on the app she calls “Petty Journals Club” with Sav.” In an interview with NBC, Savannah explained that through this series, she discovered a disturbing trend – a lot of the people spreading misinformation about vaccinations, masks and even advising viewers on how to get around lockdown restrictions were working in the health sector themselves.
In one video, which amassed 4.9 million views, she took down an anti-masker named Marissa who went on a flight wearing a fake mask while bragging “nobody’s gonna know.”
Unfortunately, with Savannah exposing her Facebook page, contacting the airline she flew with and also exposing her for prescribing supplements without any medical training, it looks like people are going to know after all.
She initially went viral in March after a video, amassed 3.3 million views, detailed how she identified a TikToker falsifying vaccine records and reported them to their employer upon discovering that they worked as a nurse.
The TikTok caused a huge backlash among some areas of TikTok, with many commenters accusing Sparks of “doxxing” the user and “ruining their life.”
TikTok: Savannah SparksThis led to her having her own information leaked and on 28 March, announced that she would be leaving TikTok as a result of the abuse.
However, she has since returned to the app and is continuing to work to hold people spreading misinformation to account.
She told NBC: “Anything that forces somebody to change their way of thinking … it makes them angry. So, keeping that in mind, the fact that I’m doing this to so many people, I accept I’m doing exactly what I need to be doing, and I’m exactly where I need to be.”