- Parents of four British teens sue TikTok and ByteDance, alleging their children died after attempting the viral “blackout challenge.”
- The lawsuit claims TikTok’s algorithm pushed dangerous content, leading to the teens’ deaths in 2022.
- TikTok states it prohibits harmful challenges and has blocked related searches since 2020, directing users to its Safety Centre.
The parents of four British teenagers who allegedly died after attempting a dangerous TikTok trend have filed a lawsuit against the video-sharing platform and its parent company, ByteDance.
EKO HOT BLOG reports that according to the lawsuit, Isaac Kenevan, Archie Battersbee, Julian “Jools” Sweeney, and Maia Walsh lost their lives in 2022 while participating in the “blackout challenge,” a viral trend that encouraged users to hold their breath until they passed out.
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The US-based Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) filed the complaint on Thursday in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware on behalf of the grieving parents.
While TikTok has blocked searches related to the challenge since 2020, the lawsuit claims the platform’s “addiction-by-design” algorithms exposed vulnerable children to dangerous content, pushing them to engage with high-risk trends.
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TikTok has previously stated that it prohibits dangerous challenges and directs users searching for related content to its Safety Centre.
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