Tiktok sued by parents of teenagers from the United Kingdom after alleged deaths for challenge

Tiktok is being sued by the parents of four British teenagers who believe that their children died after participating in viral trends that circulated on the video exchange platform in 2022.

The lawsuit states that Isaac Kenevan, Archie Battersbee, Julian “Jools” Sweeney and Maia Walsh died while trying the so -called “blackout challenge.”

The Law Center for Victims of Social Boards based in the United States filed the lawsuit for unfair death against Tiktok and its parent company Bytedance on behalf of children’s parents on Thursday.

Searches for videos or hashtags related to the Tiktok challenge are blocked.

According to the firm, this block has been in force since 2020.

Tiktok says that it prohibits dangerous content or challenges on the platform, and directs those looking for hashtags or videos to their security center.

The complaint was filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware on behalf of the mother of Archie Hollie Dance, Isaac’s mother, Lisa Knevan, Jools’s mother, Ellen Roome and Maia’s father, Liam Walsh.

He states that the deaths were “the foreseeable result of the addiction to the design of the byte, the programming and programming decisions”, which were “destined to push children to maximize their commitment to Tiktok by any necessary means.”

And accuses the byte of having “created harmful dependencies in each child” through their design and “flooded them with a seemingly endless damage.”

“These were no damage that children were looking for or wanted to see when their use of Tiktok began,” he says.

Ellen Roome, who believes that his 14 -year -old son Jools died after participating in an online challenge, has tried to obtain Tiktok data that could provide clarity around his death.

She has been campaigning for “Jools Law”, which would allow parents to access their children’s social media accounts if they die. He was debated in Parliament on January 13, 2025.

“Parents must be aware of the dangers of social networks,” he told the BBC.

“I thought Tiktok was silly dances and silly challenges like standing in your hands and putting your t -shirt upside down, Jools and I did several of those challenges, because we thought they were fun.

“It’s not that: there is a harmful material there, and I think parents must be aware and really, if they can, make their children show them their phone.”

She said she believed she was “morally incorrect” that Tiktok will not give access to his son’s social networks.

“(Tiktok) could have delivered the data and said: ‘Here the parents were grown, I hope they get some answers,” he said.

“He is leading us to court in the United States to try to do that, and I think that is morally incorrect.”

Leanda Barrington-Leach, executive director of the Campae 5right Foundation, said that this was “the horrible consequences that technology companies put profits over the lives of children.”

The demand of families occurs when the question signs hang on the future of Tiktok in the United States.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to extend the deadline for the application to be prohibited in the country unless another company is sold.

A coroner concluded in January 2024 that Hollie Dance’s son, Archie, died at age 12 After a “joke or experiment” went wrong at home in Southend-on-sea in April 2022 – And he said there was no evidence that he was doing an online challenge at that time, as his mother believed.

Mrs. Dance, together with Lisa Kenevan, the mother of Isaac, 13, has tried to raise awareness On the trends of potentially dangerous social networks following their children’s deaths.

Lisa Kenevan, speaking of ISSAC at BBC breakfast in May, described him as a “happy and normal child” who “wanted to take care of his mother and dad.”

She said she was a “highly inquisitive and highly intelligent” child who wanted to understand how things worked, which led him to try the blackout challenge.

It is one of several viral tendencies of social networks that have It resulted in warnings of schools and experts about their dangers.

Tiktok said in 2021 that it would strengthen Its detection and application of rules on dangerous online challengesAnd, according to the reports, he blocked some searches for the blackout challenge.

But he has faced a series of demands and accusations of parents of deceased children claiming that he recommended harmful content.

The Law Center for Victims of Social Networks helped Tawainna Anderson sue the platform in 2022 after her 10 -year -old daughter Nyla died after allegedly participating in the Blackout Challenge.

A United States Court of Appeals revoked the dismissal of a lower court in its case in August 2024.