10-year-old Nella Anderson was found unconscious in her Pennsylvania bedroom in December. The girl died after five days in intensive care. According to her mother, Twainna, her daughter took part in the “blackout challenge”. Participants try to hold their breath for as long as possible.
Nilah saw a video about the challenge on TikTok’s For You page, family lawyers say, accusing the company of negligence. “The TikTok algorithm determined that a life-threatening blackout challenge was most likely to interest 10-year-old Nelah Anderson, and she died as a result.”
“I want to hold this company accountable,” Tawena said. “It is time to end these grave challenges so that other families do not have to endure the suffering that we now have to go through every day.” American media†
TikTok has not yet commented on the lawsuit. In an earlier response, the company said it had expressed its “heartfelt condolences” to the family. But TikTok also noted that the obfuscation challenge already existed before the video app. “We remain committed to user security and immediately remove these types of videos as soon as they are found,” the company said.
Many children died
TikTok previously claimed that the blackout challenge was “never a TikTok trend.” In April of last year, a 12-year-old boy died in Colorado after his family also claimed he participated in the blackout challenge.
In Italy A 10-year-old girl died last year, after she was most likely challenged via TikTok to do the blackout challenge. Italy then banned the app in the country for users who own files Age is not verified†
procedures
last fall tik tok said To be able to automatically detect dangerous challenges earlier. “We have new technology that can alert us more quickly to a sudden increase in videos that violate our rules. This also allows us to better address potentially dangerous behavior,” an app manager said at the time.
TikTok users will also see notifications and warnings when they look for potentially dangerous challenges.
An institution representing tens of thousands of concerned parents The supervisors called the EU To interfere with TikTok, as it will not do enough to ensure the safety of mostly young users.
