TikTok gets new challenge – from parents 

TikTok recently delayed a potentially fatal blow in the United States with a stay on a Supreme Court ban but now faces a new challenge: a lawsuit over the wrongful deaths of four children, raising concerns about the platform’s safety.

The Social Media Victims Law Center sued TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, on behalf of four UK families, alleging the platform contributed to their children’s deaths in 2022 from injuries sustained while attempting the TikTok Blackout Challenge.

The case is filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware. Three of the children lived in Essex County, and three died within 45 days of one another. None of them knew each other.

“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,” says Matthew P Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, who represents the families.

“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 complaint accuses TikTok of being a dangerous and addictive product that markets itself as fun and safe for children, while lulling parents into a false sense of security. When in fact, TikTok pushes dangerous prank and challenge videos to children based on their age and location to increase engagement time on the platform to generate higher revenues.

TikTok has told lawmakers around the world that the Blackout Challenge had never been on its platform and works to discount credible reports of children being exposed to and dying because of blackout and similar challenge videos on the platform, according to the lawsuit. Other challenges that have been found on TikTok include: the Fire Mirror Challenge, Benadryl Challenge, Skull Breaker Challenge, Nyquil Chicken Challenge, Face Wax Challenge, Coronavirus Challenge, Hot Water Challenge, and Fire Challenge.

The following profiles of the victims were provided by the Social Media Victims Law Center:

Isaac Kenevan, 13, Essex County, United Kingdom

Isaac was a curious and intelligent child who was interested in how things worked. He was well-behaved and had no behavioural or mental health issues prior to using TikTok. He starting using TikTok in 2021, and at the time, his parents thought TikTok was a fun, silly, and safe platform designed for kids and young people.

It wasn’t until after his death on 9 March 2022, that his mother, Lisa, was told by police that there were videos of Isaac on his phone trying to choke himself to unconsciousness, an act that eventually killed him.

At the time of Isaac’s death, Lisa had never heard of the Blackout Challenge.

Archie Battersbee 12, Essex County, United Kingdom

Archie was a confident and fearless child who threw himself into his hobbies including gymnastics and martial arts. He loved superheroes and always had a smile and kind words for those around him.

Hollie, his mother, had no idea that her son used TikTok until after his death.

On 7 April 2022, Archie was found nonresponsive as the result of having tied a ligature to a stairs banister on one end and around his neck on the other. Archie spent the next four months on life support, including a very complicated and public battle in which Hollie fought to keep her son alive. He was taken off life support and died on 6 August 2022, at the age of 12.

TikTok allegedly has told authorities that it has no data relating to Archie’s use of its platform, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including TikTok data in Archie’s device the day he died.

Julian “Jools” Sweeney, 14, Cheltenham, United Kingdom

Jools was an intelligent child, always adventurous and up for a challenge.

He opened his first TikTok account when he was 11 years old. At first, his mother Ellen wasn’t concerned about him using the social media platform. As she recalls, Jools and his friends participated in different TikTok challenges they thought were fun and safe like trying to put a t-shirt on while standing on their hands.

On 13 April 2022, Jools had a friend over to his house. Ring camera footage shows him waving goodbye to a friend at 8:46 p.m. after speaking with his mom on the phone. That would be the last time that she spoke with her son. Later that evening, Ellen returned home and found her son unresponsive in his room, with a ligature around his neck.

His mother tried to access Jools’ social media to determine what led to his death. While she now believes it was TikTok’s dangerous programming decisions and design, she still does not have her son’s TikTok data.

At the time of Jools’ death, TikTok would not willingly provide such data and U.K. law required a finding of criminality and court order. This prompted her to launch a campaign for “Jools’ Law,” which seeks to grant parents the right to access their deceased children’s social media accounts without needing a court order.

Her petition for Jools’ Law gathered 126,033 signatures, 115,000 in just one week and, on 13 January 2025, Jools’ Law was debated in Parliament.

Maia Walsh, 13, Essex County, United Kingdom

Maia was a joyful child who was fearless, intelligent, and a born leader who aspired to be House Captain at her school.

Believing that TikTok was harmless entertainment, Maia’s father allowed her to download TikTok on his phone, after checking the age limits set by both Apple and TikTok.

Having no reason to believe that TikTok was pushing dangerous content to his daughter, he later allowed her to open a second TikTok account, this time on her own device. Had he known the dangers that TikTok posed to their daughter he would never have allowed her to use the platform. Maia quickly became hooked on TikTok and began having trouble sleeping.

On the evening of 6 October 2022, around 9 p.m. Maia died of asphyxiation by ligature. The police investigation into Maia’s death is ongoing without her father, Liam, receiving an answer to what happened to his daughter.

Liam did everything he could to obtain access to Maia’s social media data, in the hopes of finding answers. Because of TikTok’s two-factor authentication requirements he had to re-instate her mobile phone number, and even then, he tried and tried and repeatedly failed to obtain access.

In September 2023, after six months of trying, Liam finally got through and was able to download just some of Maia’s data via TikTok’s tools. What he found was that TikTok had targeted her with dangerous challenges and self-harm videos.