Bereaved families file US lawsuit against TikTok over access to children's data
Bereaved families have filed a lawsuit against TikTok in the United States over efforts to access their children's social media accounts because they 'want answers' about their deaths.
The Social Media Victims Law Centre (SMVLC), a US-based legal resource for parents of children harmed by social media use, said it had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the video-sharing platform and its parent firm, ByteDance, on behalf of four families in the UK.
The lawsuit, filed in the US state of Delaware, claims Isaac Kenevan, 13; Archie Battersbee, 12; Julian 'Jools' Sweeney, 14; and Maia Walsh, 13; all died from injuries suffered while taking part in online challenges in 2022.
It accuses TikTok of pushing dangerous prank and challenge videos to children to boost engagement time on the platform.
Jools's mother, Ellen Roome, 48, a businesswoman from Cheltenham, said the families hope to force a response from tech firms on the issue, and that she 'just wants answers' about her son's death
She added that social media firms had so far refused to give her access to her son's accounts, saying a court order was required to do so.
Ms Roome said she had been 'shocked' to learn that she 'wasn't entitled' to Jools's data, and said it was 'the only piece that we haven't looked at, to look at why he took his own life'.
She told the PA news agency that it had been 'horrendously difficult' to 'not understand why' her son had died.
'One day, all of the four children, none of them had mental health issues, it was completely out of the blue, they all decided to take their life – more importantly, I don't think they intended to take their life,' she said.
'This is our opportunity to get answers. Its incredibly hard and emotional to lose a child, and this has given us a possibility of understanding exactly what happened that night.'
Ms Roome has also been campaigning for 'Jools' Law' to give parents the right to access their children's online activity after they die – and the issue was debated in Parliament last month after an online petition for the campaign gained more than 126,000 signatures.
'Without social media companies releasing it, I still don't know what he was looking at, was there somebody weird messaging him? I just don't know,' she told PA.
'So my fight has just been, 'all we want is our children's data'.'
She added: 'I know that I was a loving mum to my son, and I know my son loved me, so I don't really care what everybody else says. I want to know the truth.
'We shouldn't have had to go this far to get our children's data. Why didn't they just say, 'here's the data, I hope you get some closure?', or some sort of answer from it.
'They could have handed this over and said, 'let me help you' – and nobody has ever tried to help us.'
Matthew P Bergman, founding lawyer of the SMVCL, and who represents the families, said: 'TikTok's algorithm purposely targeted these children with dangerous content to increase their engagement time on the platform and drive revenue.
'It was a clear and deliberate business decision by TikTok that cost these four children their lives.'
Asked how she responded after being told the lawsuit had been filed, Ms Roome said: 'Oh my God, we've got a chance to get answers.
'There's an overwhelming excitement of a possible chance of answers, but there's also that underlying grief of 'we're doing this because our children are dead'.
'It's very weird emotions. On the one hand you're pleased, but I don't know how to put it into words … it's difficult, it's been a difficult journey.
'I just feel I want answers. It's my son and I think anybody – those with children and without – can hopefully understand that it's a mother's love.
'I'm not stopping. There's nothing in this world which would stop me. I want answers. This isn't about money or anything like that. I want the answers.'
TikTok has been approached for comment.
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X – which also reduced vetting following Elon Musk's takeover of social media network Twitter in 2022 – did not respond to CNN's questions on this issue. In China – which has some of the world's most tightly-controlled internet restrictions – censors rarely remove any cat torture content, Chen said. 'In most situations there is no supervision of this,' Chen said. 'China's censorship of political content and pornography is very strict, but with animal abuse, basically no threshold has been set.' Multiple cases of cat abuse in China have been reported by state media in the past few years, but most alleged that the perpetrators did not face any legal consequences. Other countries with animal cruelty legislation have made multiple arrests of cat torturers in recent years – including the US, Canada and Turkey. In the UK, two teenagers were recently charged with causing animal suffering, after a pair of kittens were found dead and mutilated in north-west London on May 3. The local police also wrote a letter to schools in the area, warning them of an increase in reports of young people committing acts of cruelty towards animals. In Turkey – which is known for its abundance of street cats – five members of a cat torture network were arrested in January 2024 for 'abusing cats and engaging in organizational propaganda.' More arrests were made in February and September last year, including one for 'torture of a kitten.' 'In Turkey, within these groups, there are up to 15,000 members, possibly even more,' Lara said. 'So these networks are spreading, and they mimic what the same networks in China have been doing.' The Turkish Interior Ministry did not respond to CNN's request for comment. Activists say the role of legislation and enforcement is critical to shutting these networks down. High-profile cases in recent years include a monkey torture ring originating in Indonesia which was exposed and dismantled in 2023. British man Adam Britton was also jailed in August 2024 for torturing and sexually abusing dozens of dogs in Australia and sharing the videos on Telegram. Peter Li, an associate professor of East Asian politics at the University of Houston-Downtown and a China policy specialist for Humane Society International, says China is the only major industrialized country that does not have comprehensive anti-cruelty laws. 'It's time that China adopts an anti-cruelty law,' Li said, though he conceded that it was 'a politically challenging issue.' Li said multiple proposals have been submitted over the past two decades to China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress, but they have never progressed – partly due to fears they could impede the farming industry, and due to a cultural lack of concern for animal welfare among China's older generation. 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'Simply expelling the students cannot solve the problem,' Wang Wenda, director of students' psychological health at Xinhua College of Ningxia University, was quoted as saying. 'They might not only hurt animals but also people if they do not get proper guidance and help.' Links between cruelty to animals and to humans – documented by multiple global studies – could ultimately drive law enforcement in China – and elsewhere – to take the issue more seriously. 'It starts off with cat torture,' said Lara. 'There have been multiple cases of people who go off to commit other crimes, such as serial killers, but also those that we don't hear of – abuse within the home (and) maybe children.' 'There is a crossover here, and so they're just acting out a fantasy through cats.' For campaigners, there's no choice but to keep going, despite the huge impact on their own mental health. 'It's definitely changed the way that I view the world,' said Lara. 'I believe that I have taken on something which I am committed to for the rest of my life, until this changes.' On May 18, Lara helped to organize global protests calling for an end to cat torture, held in more than 20 major cities around the world. Chen said he had sought medical support for his mental health, but he'll keep logging on every night because each sickening video takes him closer to a potential arrest. He said he'll watching in the hope of ending the depravity, because 'someone has to do it, right?' Madalena Araújo, Isil Sariyuce contributed reporting Story Editors: Hilary Whiteman, Jerome Taylor Video: Vina Salazar, Alex Dicker, Dan Hodge, Martin Bourke, Kevin Broad Data and Graphics Editor: Lou Robinson Illustration and Motion Designer: Alberto Mier Visual Editor: Mark Oliver
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