Instagram, Facebook and TikTok fail to act on animations spreading hate and lies about PIP claimants

Three leading social media companies have failed to act over animations that are spreading hate and lies about disabled people who receive benefits at an “alarming” rate.

The animations – focusing on recipients of personal independence payment (PIP) – have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

They feature a fictional claimant (pictured), who walks with crutches and is fraudulently claiming PIP, and the activities of assessors and Department for Work and Pensions investigators who suspect him of fraud.

The claimant’s partner wears a tee-shirt with the logo “Queen of the fiddle”, and animations feature the couple adding up their benefit revenue, counting rolls of cash, and inventing new ways to cheat the social security system.

The simple plots often mirror right-wing attacks that have repeatedly accused PIP claimants of fraudulent behaviour.

Many of the images have been viewed more than 100,000 times, with one viewed 390,000 times and securing more than 9,000 likes.

The public comments under the posts frequently promote the idea that fraud is widespread, while many others are racist.

The alarm over the animations comes only a few weeks before the government is due to publish the final report of the Timms Review of PIP, with mounting pressure on the government from right-wing media and politicians to slash spending on disability benefits.

The videos appear to have been created by an anonymous contributor under the name “Pip Pip Hooray”, who has shared scores of videos that suggest PIP fraud is widespread, although he appears to operate under several aliases.

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures show that just 1.4 per cent of PIP spending was fraudulent in 2025-26.

Sophia Kleanthous, policy and campaigns officer for Disability Rights UK, said: “We are extremely concerned about the increasingly hostile media representation of disabled people on benefits and those of us receiving social care.

“The misinformation and messaging in these animations and videos inferring that disabled people are ‘benefit scroungers’ is not new but the rate at which this is being shared is alarming.

“Disabled people already face countless barriers to getting the support we need.

“We know that media representation matters and has a powerful impact with the potential to drive disabled people further into exclusion and isolation.

“We are therefore very worried about the impact these videos could have on disabled people, and on our increasing levels of mental distress.

“As a community we are facing an onslaught of hate and negative stories about our lives.

“It starts with government messaging – the government and media have a duty to stop misinformation and harm to our community.”

She said DR UK supported Inclusion London’s new Disability Media Action campaign, which focuses on media coverage that scapegoats and stigmatises disabled people.

William*, the disabled person who alerted Disability News Service (DNS) to the posts, said he first came across the animations on Instagram, and began reporting them as either fake and misleading information or offensive, but all his complaints were rejected.

He later found the same animations on other channels, including TikTok and Facebook.

William, who himself has previously had to appeal against a claim for out-of-work disability benefits being rejected by DWP, but is now retired, and has never received PIP, said: “I was outraged by the attack on disabled claimants and the portrayal of a lax, easy-to-access, free-for-all benefits system, which I know is far from true.

“Surely such imagery and animations is intended to damage disabled people’s access to the welfare benefits structure through no fault other than having become sick.

“I consider these videos to be propagating hate towards the PIP community.”

He said he believed the videos have been so widely shared that they could be generating substantial revenue for the anonymous author.

Asked why no action had been taken about the animations, and whether the company understood the harm they were causing, Instagram had not responded by noon today (Thursday).

Facebook and TikTok had also failed to respond to concerns about the animations by this morning.

DNS attempted to contact “Pip Pip Hooray” this week through his Facebook account, but he had not responded by noon today.

*Not his real name