Video-sharing sensation TikTok is being sued in California after children died while taking part in a "Blackout Challenge" that makes a sport of choking oneself until passing out.
The lawsuit filed in state court in Los Angeles last week
accuses TikTok software of "intentionally and repeatedly" pushing the
Blackout Challenge that led to the deaths of an eight-year-old girl in Texas
and a nine-year-old girl in Wisconsin last year.
"TikTok needs to be held accountable for pushing deadly
content to these two young girls," said Matthew Bergman, an attorney at
the Social Media Victims Law Centre, which filed the suit.
"TikTok has invested billions of dollars to
intentionally design products that push dangerous content that it knows are
dangerous and can result in the deaths of its users."
TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.
The suit alleges that TikTok's algorithm promoted the Blackout
Challenge to each of the girls, who died from self-strangulation -- one using
rope and the other a dog leash.
It additionally listed children in Italy, Australia and
elsewhere whose deaths have been linked to the TikTok Blackout Challenge.
TikTok has featured and promoted an array of challenges in
which users film themselves taking part in themed acts that are sometimes
dangerous.
Among the litany of TikTok challenges described in court
documents was the "Skull Breaker Challenge" in which people have their
legs kicked out from under them while jumping so they flip and hit their heads.
The "Coronavirus Challenge" involves licking
random items and surfaces in public during the pandemic, and the "Fire
Challenge" involves dousing things with flammable liquid and setting them
ablaze, court documents said.
The suit calls for a judge to order TikTok to stop hooking
children via its algorithm and promoting dangerous challenges, and to pay
unspecified cash damages.
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