We have seen that some trends that started on social media platforms have had negative effects, especially on children. So much so that some currents even caused the death of children. Due to one of these trends, many lawsuits are being filed against TikTok, the most popular social media platform today.
According to a case file submitted in June, the ‘fainting challenge’ trend in TikTok has caused the death of 7 children aged 15 and under in just the last 1 year. According to the lawsuit, users are encouraged to suffocate themselves with belts, purse strings or similar materials until they pass out.
The parents of the two children listed the deaths in the past 1 year:
The most recent lawsuit filed against TikTok was jointly filed by the parents of eight-year-old Lalani Walton and nine-year-old Arriani Arroyo. It was claimed in the file that five different children lost their lives due to the same movement. The information about these children is listed as follows:
- A 10-year-old boy living in Italy, in January 2021,
- A 12-year-old boy living in the state of Colorado, in March 2021,
- A 14-year-old boy living in Australia, in June 2021,
- A 12-year-old boy living in Oklahoma, in July 2021,
- A 10-year-old boy living in Pennsylvania died in December 2021.
TikTok banned the stream from being searched on the platform, but in the recent deaths, children’s curiosity was not to blame:
The parents of the 10-year-old boy in Pennsylvania, listed above, sued TikTok after their child’s death. In this case, TikTok argued that it put a filter on the ‘blackout challenge) search on the platform and the results were not displayed. But in the latest lawsuit, Walton and Arroyo’s parents shared that the streaming videos were not included in these search results.
According to parents, the videos appeared directly in front of their children in the TikTok stream. Therefore, parents accused TikTok of finding the videos in question suitable for younger children. In the case in question, the penalty requested for TikTok was presented as compensation for the financial and moral losses of the families. There was no statement from TikTok on the subject.
The social media platform has faced similar lawsuits before and agreed to pay a $5.7 million penalty for a lawsuit in 2019.
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