A mother in Pennsylvania, United States has sued TikTok and its parent company ByteDance for allegedly promoting content that caused the death of her daughter.
In her lawsuit, Tawainna Anderson says her 10-year-old daughter Nylah died last year after attempting the 'Blackout Challenge' that appeared on TikTok. The challenge encourages users to record themselves holding their breath or suffocating themselves to the point of fainting.
Anderson said he found his daughter unconscious on December 7, 2021 and rushed her to the hospital. But five days later Nylah died of her injuries.
Court documents claim that Nylah saw the video challenge on the 'For You' page after it was recommended by the Tiktok algorithm which found the content interesting for Nylah to watch.
"It's time for this dangerous challenge to end. This has to change, this has to stop because I don't want other parents to go through what I went through," Anderson said at a press conference, as quoted by Gizmodo, Sunday (15/5/2022).
Prior to the Nylah case, the Blackout Challenge had previously taken several victims who were still children. A 10-year-old girl in Italy died after trying this challenge in January 2021, and a boy in Colorado, USA died in April 2021 after taking part in this challenge.
Blackout Challenge content has reportedly been circulating on TikTok for years, but variations of the challenge have been a part of kids' school play for decades.
"This dreadful 'challenge', which people seem to learn from sources other than TikTok, has been around for a long time before our platform and has never been a trend for TikTok," a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.
"We remain vigilant in our commitment to user safety and will immediately remove related content if found. Our deepest sympathies go out to the families of their tragic loss."
The lawsuit is not the only one TikTok has faced over allegations of promoting harmful content to children. In March 2022, prosecutors in several US states launched investigations to find out whether TikTok was harmful to young people, and whether they were aware of the content young users were viewing.