A ten-year-old died after a "challenge" on TikTok - Lawsuit against the company

The family of a 10-year-old girl who died after trying to participate in the "Blackout Challenge" filed a lawsuit against TikTok.

This is a "game" in which the users of the platform are asked to strangle themselves with a shoe cord or shoelace until they lose consciousness for a few seconds and then to videotape the moment of euphoria, when they regain consciousness.

According to Bloomberg, Nylah Anderson was an intelligent child who spoke three languages. On December 7, she was found unconscious in her room in a Philadelphia suburb. She remained in the intensive care unit for five days and eventually lost her life.

Anderson's family accuses TikTok of promoting a defective product and negligence, saying that 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 would probably interest 10-year-old Nylah Anderson, and as a result, she died," said a lawsuit filed by ByteDance, which owns TikTok.

In a statement issued on the girl's death, the company said that "this worrying challenge, which people seem to be learning from sources other than TikTok, existed long before our platform."

The mother of the 10-year-old said in an interview that since the death of her daughter, she discovered that Nylah was not the only victim of the "challenge".

"It's time to end these dangerous challenges so that other families do not experience the sadness we experience every day," he said.

The "Blackout Challenge" appeared on other social media applications, 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, the family's lawyer.

Source: Bloomberg / Skai