The parents of four British teenagers who allegedly died after attempting a viral TikTok trend in 2022 have filed a lawsuit against the video-sharing platform.
The lawsuit, brought by the Social Media Victims Law Center in the U.S., names TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, as defendants. The parents claim their children—Isaac Kenevan, Archie Battersbee, Julian “Jools” Sweeney, and Maia Walsh—lost their lives while attempting the “blackout challenge.”
According to the NEWS BULLETIN, TikTok has blocked searches for related videos or hashtags since 2020 and maintains that it prohibits dangerous content, redirecting users searching for such trends to its Safety Centre.
The complaint, filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware, argues that the deaths were a “foreseeable result” of ByteDance’s “addiction-by-design” approach, which allegedly encourages children to engage more deeply with the platform. The parents involved in the lawsuit are Lisa Kenevan, Hollie Dance, Ellen Roome, and Liam Walsh.
