Summary
The parents of four British teenagers are suing TikTok, alleging that its algorithm promoted the deadly “blackout challenge,” leading to their children’s deaths in 2022.
The lawsuit, filed by the Social Media Victims Law Center, claims TikTok deliberately pushed dangerous content to maximize engagement.
The case follows similar lawsuits and renewed scrutiny of social media’s role in child safety.
New UK laws now require platforms to prevent children from accessing harmful challenge videos.
As much as I dislike TikTok and short-form video in general, I really don’t think this falls on TikTok. The idea of middle-schoolers discovering they can choke themselves out has been around as a “thing” since at least the late 90s.
We knew it as the “Space Monkey”. And yeah, the whole idea was to chokehold yourself until you nearly/did pass out. I suspect it has more to do with the timing of learning things like biology, and the immaturity of middle schoolers finding the idea of blacking out to be funny.
I’d agree if not for the fact that TikTok knowingly choses to use an algorithm that promotes stuff like this. In the same way, if someone was putting up bilboards suggesting mixing cleaning chemicals, or if someone was taking out TV ads promoting violence, sure, the responsibility might not only be on them, but they knowingly chose to take part.
Edit: forgot the word mixing
No, this is horseshit thinking. these super Rich companies can afford to hire Moderators. Moderation Is something they are big enough to afford.
Vote for me I propose per one million active users on any social media site requires X# Full time moderators. Create some jobs use filthy rich fucks.
Aye, but then those moderators are removing content that then throttles engagement, won’t someone think of the shareholders??
/s
TikTok hosts it, TikToks algorithm promotes it.
On the other hand HELLO PARENTS! Where the fuck were you?
Parents can’t police everything their kids do, especially when they’re older.
Especially at school, where they’re surrounded by other dumb kids doing dumb shit.
They can teach their kids to not be stupid as shit…imo this is on the parents 100%
No you can’t, only experience can teach you to not be stupid as shit. What parents can do is to teach children how to learn the right lesson from what they experienced, but they can’t control what experiences their kids are exposed to 24/7.
For us in the late 80s, it was called knocking off as a play on nodding off. The local news was all over it. In fact, that’s how my friends learned about it. I never did it but I had a few friends that would choke each other out to get high all the time.
It falls on TikTok to not moderate such things.
And we need to stop forgiving these companies when they allow things like this on their platform with no attempt at curbing the spread.
