A website created by anti-abortion group ‘Texas Right to Life’ to enable citizens to report on people who may have an abortion or helped with abortions that are past six weeks, was flooded with shrek porn and other memes, according to Vice.
The website takes advantage of a strict anti-abortion bill in Texas which goes into effect on September 1 that bans abortion in pregnant women after six weeks.
Six weeks is barely enough time to confirm a pregnancy and arrange an abortion appointment.
In an unprecedented move, the government empowers private citizens to sue Texas-based abortion clinics, doctors, and anyone who aids in an abortion. If successful, the petitioner, who does not have to reside in Texas, will receive a $10,000 award and the cost for attorney’s fees.
Texas Right To Life set up their ProLifeWhistleblower.com website in anticipation of receiving numerous tips. Visitors to the website have the option to fill out a form to send an anonymous tip on how “you think the law has been violated,” according to VICE News. That form included a request for any “evidence,” plus the name of the doctor or clinic that pertains to their tip. Another page urges people to “join the team” to help enforce the Texas law.
But, social media users found the site and issued calls to spam it.
“I found this website for, like, anonymously snitching on people who break the Texas Heartbeat Act,” one person said in a TikTok with more than half a million views, Vice reports. “You can attach any file you want to it, so I just sent them a bunch of Shrek porn. And you can do it too.”
“Wouldn’t it be so awful if we sent in a bunch of fake tips and crashed the site? Like, Greg Abbott’s butt stinks,” another TikTok user wrote.
While making a complaint one user wrote: “One time I sat on a toilet seat and I think I got pregnante (sic) from it but then the next day I threw up I was 9 did I accident miscarry(sic) the preganannt?(sic). It as in a texis (sic) school.”
“Thank goodness you are here.Today I was walking down my street in the Dallas suburb of Christiantian, and I saw SEVERAL women who were not visibly pregnant,” a reddit user wrote on the site. “I cannot say for certain that they have had abortions, but why are they not pregnant if they are of childbearing age? Clearly there are abortions afoot. Please investigate these womens!!!!”
Another Reddit user said they reported the wife of one the founders on the platform.
The site crashed last weekend.
“We anticipated spamming from the very beginning. If you give people a form on the internet, the internet will do what the internet does. So we weren’t surprised by any of this,” Kim Schwartz, the Texas Right to Life director of media and communication told Vice. “We have it all under control.”
They’ve now blocked people from outside the country from submitting false reports. People who are using VPNS to mask their locations and those with a history of trying to spam the site were blocked as well, according to Vice.
