Posting a video to social media that falsely implies others have monkeypox could be grounds for a libel lawsuit, defamation attorneys say.

One such TikTok video depicted a woman sitting on a train with a genetic condition that causes small, raised tumors to form across her skin. A picture of a monkey and a question mark captioned the video, implying wrongly the woman in the post had monkeypox.

False claims like that TikTok video can heighten shame around chronic skin conditions as well as monkeypox. The videos—and the fearful messaging that accompanies them—reflect a lack of understanding about how monkeypox spreads, and how to protect against and treat it, said Stella Safo, an HIV primary care physician and founder of Just Equity for Health. Filing a libel suit is one way to fight back, although those cases should be handled sensitively to avoid compounding stigma, advocates caution.

“The claim you need to make is that you were harmed by being associated with this condition,” said Leslie Wolf, a Georgia State University College of Law professor who specializes in health law. However, if you want to prevent people from posting those videos, but don’t want to add to the stigmatization of monkeypox, she said, “it really is a Catch-22.”

A successful libel claim would show that the plaintiff is the subject of the video, that their skin lesions are wrongly...

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