Tiktok was continued by the parents of four British teenagers who would have died after participating in viral trends that circulated on the video sharing platform in 2022.
The trial claims that Isaac Kenevan, Archie Battersbee, Julian “Jools” Sweeney and Maia Walsh died while trying the so-called “Blackout Challenge”.
The Center for Victims of Social Media Based in the United States has brought legal action against unjustified death against Tiktok and his parent company Bytedance on behalf of the parents of children on Thursday.
The BBC asked for comments from Tiktok.
The complaint was filed before the Superior Court of the State of Delaware in the name of the mother of the mother of Archie, Hollie Dance, of Isaac’s mother, Lisa Kenevan, of the mother of Jools Ellen Rome and the father by Maia Liam Walsh.
He claims that deaths were “the foreseeable result of the design dependence on the design and programming decisions of Bytedance”, which “aimed to push children to maximize their commitment with Tiktok by all the necessary means”.
And he accuses Byédance of having “created harmful dependencies in each child” through his design and “flooded them with an apparently endless damage flow”.
“It was not harmful that the children searched or wanted to see when their use of Tiktok began,” he said.
The family trial comes as the question points hang about the future of Tiktok in the United States.
President Donald Trump signed a decree in January to extend the deadline for the prohibition of application in the country, except sold to another company.
A Coroner concluded in January 2024 that Hollie Dance Archie’s son died at the age of 12 after a “farce or experience” was mistaken at their home in Southend-on-Sea in April 2022.
Ms. Dance, with Lisa Kenevan, mother of Isaac, 13, tried to raise awareness of potentially dangerous social media trends following the death of their children.
Ellen Roome, who thinks that her 14 -year -old son, Jools, died after participating in an online challenge, sought to obtain data from Tiktok that could bring clarity around her death.
She campaigned for the “Jools law”, which would allow parents to access their children’s social media accounts if they die.
“It is my only goal of trying to do something positive for the loss of Jools, not just me, but for families who have already lost children and families in the future,” She declared to the BBC in January.
