British families sue TikTok in U.S. over Blackout Challenge children deaths
Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Four British families Thursday filed a wrongful death suit against TikTok and its owner ByteDance over the self-strangulation deaths of four children who were participating in a TikTok Blackout Challenge.
The U.S.-based Social Media Victims Law Center filed the suit in Delaware Superior Court. on behalf of the families of Isaac Kenevan, 13; Archie Battersbee, 12; Julian "Jools" Sweeney,14; and Maia Walsh, 13.
"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," the SMVLC said in a statement.
The suit alleges the deaths were "the forseeable result of ByteDance's engineered addiction-by-design and programming decisions" that pushed children to maximize their TikTok engagement "by any means necessary."
Sweeney's mother Ellen Roome told the BBC a law debated in Parliament dubbed "Jools' Law" should be passed so parents are allowed to access their children's social media accounts if they die.
She had to sue in the United States before obtaining her son's TikTok data. She said she believed that was morally wrong and TikTok could have simply handed over the data.
"It's no coincidence that three of the four children who died from self-suffocation after being exposed to the dangerous and deadly TikTok Blackout Challenge lived in the same city and that all fit a similar demographic," SMVLC attorney Matthew P. Bergman said in a statement.
He added that TikTok's algorithm "purposely targeted these children with dangerous content to increase their engagement time on the platform and drive revenue."
According to the lawsuit, Maia Walsh's father Liam was able to access her TikTok data after months of trying and said he found TikTok had targeted the 13 year-old with "dangerous challenges and self-harm videos."
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