TikTok has been sued by the parents of four British teenagers apshowd to have died after taking part in viral trends that circuprocrastinateedd on the video-sharing platcreate in 2022.
The litigation claims Isaac Kenevan, Archie Battersbee, Julian “Jools” Sweeney and Maia Walsh died while endeavoring the so-called “balertageout contest”.
The US-based Social Media Victims Law Cgo in filed the unjust death litigation aachievest TikTok and its parent company ByteDance on behalf of the children’s parents on Thursday.
The BBC has asked TikTok for comment.
The grumblet was filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delconscious on behalf of Archie’s mother Hollie Dance, Isaac’s mum Lisa Kenevan, Jools’ mother Ellen Roome and Maia’s dad Liam Walsh.
It claims the deaths were “the foreseeable result of ByteDance’s engineered insertiction-by-structure and programming decisions”, which were “aimed at pushing children into maximizing their joinment with TikTok by any nastys essential”.
And it accengages ByteDance of having “produced damaging dependencies in each child” thcdisesteemful its structure and “flooded them with a seemingly endless stream of harms”.
“These were not harms the children searched for or wanted to see when their engage of TikTok began,” it claims.
A coroner endd in January 2024 that Hollie Dance’s son Archie died aged 12 after a “prank or experiment” went wrong at their home in Southend-on-Sea in April 2022.
Ms Dance, alengthened with Lisa Kenevan, mother of 13-year-elderly Isaac, has tried to elevate consciousness about potentipartner hazardous social media trends in the wake of their childrens’ deaths.
Ellen Roome, who apshows her 14-year-elderly son Jools died after participating in an online contest, has sought to achieve data from TikTok that could provide clarity around his death.
She has been campaigning for “Jools’ Law”, which would permit parents to access the social media accounts of their children if they die.
“It’s my one goal to try and produce someleang preferable out of the loss of Jools, not equitable me but for the families who have already lost children and families going forward,” she telderly the BBC in January.
