How TikTok bots turned a cancer patient's story into engagement bait

Sydney Towle was 23 when doctors diagnosed her with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive bile duct cancer.

Towle documented her illness and treatment on TikTok to more than 1 million followers. Her videos regularly drew tens of thousands of likes and thousands of comments filled with well-wishes and prayers for her recovery.

Not everyone responded positively. A May 2025 New York Times article detailed how Towle received online hate and even death threats from people who wrongly believed she was faking her cancer for profit. 

But over the past six months, a second, quieter form of exploitation has formed around her videos. Indicator identified a network of 152 deceptive TikTok accounts that repost Towle’s content with slight alterations in an effort to farm engagement. 

The accounts, which exhibited signs of automation, use sympathy to siphon audience and engagement away from Towle while misleading users. Many accounts in the network have more than the 10,000 followers required to potentially earn money from TikTok’s creator monetization program. Videos posted by the accounts often receive tens or hundreds of thousands of views. 

Melanie Bosselait, a TikTok spokesperson, said the accounts identified by Indicator would be removed and confirmed that they were automated.

"TikTok is designed for authentic experiences, and the misuse of a creator's personal story to mislead our community is strictly prohibited,” Bosselait said in an emailed statement. “Following a review, we found the accounts in question violated our policies against inauthentic and automated behavior and took appropriate enforcement action."

The company declined to say whether any of the accounts were monetized.

Indicator sent a request for comment to Towle and her team on July 15. She died on August 5, one day after entering hospice care. Indicator did not receive a response before her passing.