A lawsuit against TikTok was filed by the family of a 10-year-old girl who died after attempting to participate in the "Blackout Challenge".
It's a "game" in which users of the platform are asked to strangle themselves with a cord or shoelace until they lose consciousness for a few seconds and then record on video the moment of euphoria when they regain consciousness.
According to Bloomberg, Nylah Anderson was a smart kid who spoke three languages. On December 7, she was found unconscious in her room in a Philadelphia suburb. She spent five days in intensive care and eventually died.
Anderson's family is accusing TikTok of promoting a defective product and negligence, saying the dangerous challenge was promoted to the girl through the "for you" page on the platform.
"The algorithm decided that the deadly blackout challenge was appropriate and likely to interest 10-year-old Nylah Anderson and as a result of this, she died," the lawsuit by ByteDance, which owns TikTok, states.
In a statement issued about the girl's death, the company said that "this disturbing challenge, which people seem to be learning about from sources other than TikTok, existed long before our platform."
The 10-year-old's mother said in an interview that since her daughter's death she found out that Nylah was not the only victim of the "challenge."
[BR][/P][BR]"It's time to end these dangerous challenges so that other families don't experience the grief we experience every day," she said.
The "Blackout Challenge" appeared on other social media apps, but a forensic analysis of Nylah Anderson's cell phone showed that TikTok was being used at the time of the incident, said Jeffrey Goodman, an attorney for the family.
Sources: skai.gr/ Bloomberg
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