TikTok is Being Sued by Parents After Children Die from Blackout Challenge
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.
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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
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