TikTok sued after girls die trying ‘blackout challenge’

[Eldorado]

Parents of two girls who died in a 2021 “blackout challenge” on TikTok, which encouraged users to choke themselves until they passed out, filed a suit on Tuesday in the Los Angeles county superior court.

Represented by the Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), a legal resource for parents of children harmed by social media addiction and abuse, they allege the platform’s “dangerous algorithm intentionally and repeatedly” pushed videos of the challenge into the children’s feeds, incentivizing them to participate in the challenge that ultimately took their lives.

“TikTok needs to be held accountable for pushing deadly content to these two young girls,” said Matthew P Bergman, founding attorney of SMVLC.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/families-sue-tiktok-after-girls-died-while-trying-blackout-challenge/ar-AAZfj5k?

[Nutrition Fact]

I thought tiktok was the Darwin Awards center of operation.

[rashore]

Goodness, that was a stupid challenge when I was a kid ages ago before tiktok existed. Perhaps the parents should try rearing their young to not fall for stupid like that. Maybe keep an eye on the kids tictok to see how the kids trained the algorithm to do that and discourage the kids from watching that kind of content. Or maybe not let little kids have access to that sort of thing. 

[Bendy Demon]

Sad indeed. What is even more lamentable is that the parents neglected their parenting duties and raised gullible and -sorry to say- rather stupid children who lacked and modicum of discernment and critical thinking.

Also..what is this compulsion to put a phone in the hands of children? Even toddlers. It is not needed nor even healthy.

Sad for all involved.

[Tatetopa]

It is not just tik tok.  Twitter and YouTube are also full of fake and dangerous "hacks".   These can do with food prep and be relatively harmless failures or  of a more dangerous nature.  For example you can find many videos on so called fractal etching or electro etching of wood.  Some of them even show you how to make the apparatus from a microwave transformer.  So far, I believe 33 deaths have been attributed to this technique, not all beginners either. 

You see articles like  this from April 23, 2022:

Wisconsin man, woman electrocuted to death while trying 'highly dangerous' TikTok art trend

Melissa Siegler

Wausau Daily Herald

 

And yet you can still find plenty of these videos across many platforms, generally without any warnings whatsoever.

 

Easy to blame the parents and yet if you are a teen, do you believe your old fuddy-duddy parents  or all of your friends who say its cool.  And besides, its on the  Internet, how could it possibly be dangerous? 

 

 

[Silver]

The 'Blackout challenge' was doing the rounds decades ago- holding your breath or having someone strangle you until you fainted- I remember it from my own school. Two other interesting challenges are the 'Birdbox challenge', when you run down a pavement (if you haven't a car) or drive down a road blindfolded to see what happens; and the 'Hot water challenge', where you throw boiling water over yourself or others or drink boiling water through a straw. I think the point of these challenges is to see if you can do something adults tell you is unwise and see if you can defy the odds and come through unscathed.

Bird Box challenge sparks crash as 'blindfolded' girl smashes into oncoming car - Mirror Online

The 'Hot Water Challenge' Is Back — And Yes, It's Still Very Dangerous (yahoo.com)

Edited July 21, 2022 by The Silver Shroud

[Silver]

On 7/9/2022 at 9:58 PM, Bendy Demon said:

Sad indeed. What is even more lamentable is that the parents neglected their parenting duties and raised gullible and -sorry to say- rather stupid children who lacked and modicum of discernment and critical thinking.

Also..what is this compulsion to put a phone in the hands of children? Even toddlers. It is not needed nor even healthy.

Sad for all involved.

Tbh, I think phones are great for safety. Not toddlers of course, but pre-teens and teens on nights out and stuff, you can check on them and they can call for a lift etc.

[Trelane]

Sad and tragic. Unfortunately this is a symptom of a larger problem in America.

[+Grim Reaper 6]

30 minutes ago, Trelane said:

Sad and tragic. Unfortunately this is a symptom of a larger problem in America.

Truly is very I can’t imagine how the parents feel, my wife and I lost our daughter in 2012 she passed in her sleep at home where she been with us all her life.. She um caught a rare type up encephalitis at 3, that’s why I ended up Ft. Lewis. I was at Ft. Stewart, when she became sick, and Winn Army Hospital dropped the ball. She went to the Hospital sick but basically normal and 30 days later we took her home in Wheelchair. She was unable talk, walk,  basically she was INCAP so they could not handle the conditions so they put me the Exceptionally Family Members program, and PCS me to Ft. Lewis. From 1989 until I retired in 2003 that’s where my family stayed, but Ft. Lewis being what it Is especially. With my job I deployed 5 times in 13 years . But, anyway we owned a house behind North Fort by DuPont in a new housing development and our was finished in 2009. But after her death we couldn’t live there so we sold it and moved to Korea at the end of 2013.

So that situation was the worst thing that I have ever experienced in my life, so to have a child die like this oh.my god . Yet this is very disturbing’

In July 2021, her family began noticing bruising on Lalani’s neck, which she explained away as an accident. Unbeknownst to them, she had begun participating in the blackout challenge, which had first showed up on her feed weeks before

i must say if I found bruises on my daughter neck she be sitting in the den until she explain exactly what occurred! Sadly don’t know what the parents were thinking that’s ridiculous Wow!. 

Edited July 22, 2022 by Manwon Lender

[+Grim Reaper 6]

13 hours ago, The Silver Shroud said:

Tbh, I think phones are great for safety. Not toddlers of course, but pre-teens and teens on nights out and stuff, you can check on them and they can call for a lift etc.

You mean like putting locational software on their phone, you know the old father tracking device common software today, you can be online right computer she where she is and when she arrived! 

[the13bats]

So a parent can sue over their kids being stupid?

I have seen jackasses at clubs hold their breath or bouncers showing off choke someone out but they started right back gasping breathing.