Families sue TikTok over algorithmic promotion of Blackout Challenge
Four British families sued TikTok and ByteDance, alleging the platform's algorithm deliberately promoted dangerous content that led to the deaths of their children participating in the Blackout Challenge. The suit claims TikTok's design was engineered to maximize engagement with dangerous content, and that families faced difficulties obtaining the deceased children's data.
What happened
Four British families filed a wrongful death suit against TikTok and ByteDance in Delaware Superior Court on behalf of Isaac Kenevan, 13; Archie Battersbee, 12; Julian 'Jools' Sweeney, 14; and Maia Walsh, 13, who died by self-strangulation while participating in the Blackout Challenge.
The suit alleges that TikTok's algorithm purposely targeted these children with dangerous content to increase engagement time and drive revenue, claiming the deaths were 'the foreseeable result of ByteDance's engineered addiction-by-design and programming decisions.'
Reported impact
Four children died by self-strangulation after being exposed to the Blackout Challenge on TikTok. Maia Walsh's father reported finding that TikTok had targeted his 13-year-old daughter with 'dangerous challenges and self-harm videos.'
Ellen Roome, mother of Julian Sweeney, stated she had to sue in the United States to obtain her son's TikTok data, saying the platform could have simply handed over the data instead.
Index analysis
The lawsuit notes that three of the four children who died lived in the same city and fit a similar demographic, suggesting TikTok's algorithm may have specifically targeted children matching particular profiles with dangerous content.
Governance controls
TikTok said it blocked searches for the Blackout Challenge hashtag and related videos from 2020, and reported banning dangerous content and challenges. In 2021, TikTok said it would boost detection and enforcement around dangerous online challenges and reportedly blocked some searches related to causing blackouts.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.