TikTok as a platform has always attracted controversy. Usually, this is due to ByteDance’s alleged close relationship with the Chinese government, accusations of censorship, and concerns over the app’s extensive data collection. The latter prompted FCC commissioner Brendan Carr’s call for its removal from Google Play and the App Store.
This time, however, TikTok faces legal trouble over something far more tragic. Two families are suing the social media platforms after their daughters died attempting the “blackout challenge,” which has already claimed the lives of several other children and teens.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the lawsuit was filed by the families of eight-year-old Lalani Erika Walton and nine-year-old Arriani Jaileen Arroyo, both of whom were found dead after allegedly attempting a dangerous TikTok challenge. This blackout challenge involves participants deliberately choking or strangling themselves in order to lose consciousness. While similar dares predate TikTok by more than twenty years, both girls reportedly died after attempting to replicate videos they saw on TikTok.
The Social Media Victims Law Center assisted the Walton and Arroyo families in filing their wrongful death lawsuits. The organization, which provides legal services for the families of children harmed by social media, alleges that TikTok is a defective and dangerous product. It claims that TikTok’s designer built it to maximize add revenue by encouraging addictive behavior while lacking adequate safety procedures for kids and families. The organization alleges that the social media giant was aware of the challenge and its continued presence on the platform but TikTok did not take sufficient action to keep minors safe.
As the LA Times notes, Lalani and Arriani were not the first victims of this lethal TikTok challenge. Multiple other children ages ten to fourteen have reportedly perished while attempting it. One of these deaths, that of a ten-year-old in Palermo, Italy, prompted TikTok to ban children under thirteen from accessing the platform in that country. However, no such restrictions exist for users in the United States, where the most recent deaths occurred.
TikTok did not reply when the LA Times reached out for a comment. However, the social media platform has addressed the challenge previously, denying that the blackout challenge is a TikTok trend. Instead, the platform points to similar dares dating back to at least 1995, which the CDC believes have killed at least 82 youths in the US alone. TikTok has also blocked search results for the #BlackoutChallenge.
However, Lalani and Arriani still allegedly encountered these videos and attempted to replicate them in pursuit of internet popularity. The lawsuits argue that, while TikTok may not be legally culpable for the content of these videos, the girls’ deaths resulted from TikTok’s addictive design and marketing toward children. To quote the legal filing, plaintiffs “are not alleging that TikTok is liable for what third parties said or did, but for what TikTok did or did not do.”
Source: Los Angeles Times