Parents sue TikTok over child deaths allegedly caused by ‘blackout challenge’
The parents of four British teenagers have sued TikTok over the deaths of their children, which they claim were the result of the viral “blackout challenge”.The lawsuit claims Isaac Kenevan, 13, Archie Battersbee, 12, Julian “Jools” Sweeney, 14, and Maia Walsh, 13, died in 2022 while attempting the “blackout challenge”, which became popular on social media in 2021.The US-based Social Media Victims Law Center filed the wrongful death lawsuit against the social media platform TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, on behalf of the children’s parents on Thursday.Matthew Bergman, the founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, said: “It’s no coincidence that three of the four children who died from self-suffocation after being exposed to the dangerous and deadly TikTok blackout challenge lived in the same city and that they all fit a similar demographic.“TikTok’s algorithm purposely targeted these children with dangerous content to increase their engagement time on the platform and drive revenue.
It was a clear and deliberate business decision by TikTok that cost these four children their lives.”According to TikTok, searches for videos or hashtags related to the challenge have been blocked since 2020.The platform says it prohibits dangerous content or challenges, and aims to remove these before they are reported, as well as directing those who search for hashtags or videos to its safety centre.The complaint was filed in the superior court of the state of Delaware on behalf of Archie’s mother, Hollie Dance, Isaac’s mother, Lisa Kenevan, Jools’s mother, Ellen Roome, and Maia’s father, Liam Walsh.The lawsuit accuses TikTok of being “a dangerous and addictive product that markets itself as fun and safe for children, while lulling parents into a false sense of security”.
It says TikTok “pushes dangerous prank and challenge videos to children based on their age and location in order to increase engagement time on the platform to generate higher revenues”,The lawsuit further claims that TikTok has told lawmakers around the world that the blackout challenge had never been on its platform and “works to discount credible reports of children being exposed to and dying because of blackout and similar challenge videos on the platform”,It notes that other dangerous challenges that have been found on TikTok include those involving medications, hot water and fire,The firm states that the parents believed TikTok was a “fun, silly and safe platform designed for kids and young people”, and claims that the children involved were “confident” and “well-behaved”, and did not have prior mental health problems,The Social Media Victims Law Center represents families who believe their children have been harmed by social media, and has filed several other lawsuits against TikTok over the deaths of children and young adults, including for promoting videos showing suicide, self-harm and eating disorder content.
The law firm helped Tawainna Anderson sue the platform in 2022 after her 10-year-old daughter, Nylah, died after allegedly taking part in the blackout challenge.A US appeals court overturned a lower court’s dismissal of her case in August 2024.In February last year, a coroner ruled that Archie had “died as a result of a prank or experiment gone wrong” at his home in Southend-on-Sea.He said he could not rule out the blackout challenge but noted that there were “hundreds of other possibilities”.Jools’s mother has campaigned for parents to be given the legal right to access their children’s social media accounts to help understand why they died, after she was left with no clues as to her son’s death in 2022.
Changes to the Online Safety Act, which come into force in the UK this year, explicitly require social media companies to protect children from encountering dangerous stunts and challenges on their platforms, as well as to proactively prevent children from seeing the highest-risk forms of content.
UK urged to close tax loophole to prevent ‘massive influx’ of Shein and Temu goods
Tax campaigners have joined retailers in urging the UK government to close a tax loophole to prevent a “massive influx” of cheap goods from companies such as Shein and Temu flooding the market.It comes after the EU said it was joining the US in phasing out an exemption on customs duties for low-value parcels that has been used by the companies to export goods from China cheaply.The rule changes are seen as likely to hit trade into the EU and US by marketplaces such as Shein, prompting a report by Reuters that the online seller will have to cut the valuation of its hoped-for London stock market listing to $50bn (£40bn), about 20% below previous expectations.Paul Monaghan, the chief executive of the Fair Tax Foundation, said that in the light of the rule changes in the EU and US, the UK “can expect a massive influx of even more Shein and Temu products”, unless action was taken. “The government needs to tighten the gaping UK VAT and import tax loopholes as soon as possible to protect consumers and keep the high street alive
UK can’t say ‘job done’ on fighting inflation, says Bank of England’s Huw Pill
The Bank of England is not in a position to declare “job done” in tackling inflation amid concerns over rising prices hitting households, Threadneedle Street’s chief economist, Huw Pill, has said.Speaking a day after the central bank cut interest rates and slashed its growth forecasts for 2025, Pill warned that a “cautious” approach to further interest rate reductions would be required as inflation pressures remained.Highlighting resilience in average wage growth, he said there were signs that price pressures were not coming out of the economy as much as the Bank had hoped late last year.“That means that we’re not in a situation where we can declare job done,” he said, speaking at a National MPC Agency briefing. “I think that is a reason for caution, for carefulness in the way we proceed with removing monetary policy restriction and cutting bank rate
Trump’s meme coin sparks more than 700 copycats posing as official crypto
Despite once calling cryptocurrency “a scam”, Donald Trump made a theoretical fortune of billions after launching a self-named and highly controversial meme coin immediately before his second inauguration in January.Now an army of digital imposters is trying to cash in on the president’s name and online presence to make their own crypto killing, according to a report in the Financial Times that details hundreds of “copycat and spam coins” uploaded to Trump’s official wallet in cyberspace.Creators sent more than 700 new meme coins to the wallet in recent weeks, many named after Trump or his family members – but none of them have any formal connection.Experts say speculators can be easily duped by names that make it seem the fake coins are allied to the real $Trump cryptocurrency – which itself has seen a precipitous collapse in value – and risk the digital equivalent of being taken to the cleaners.Eswar Prasad, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an economics professor at Cornell University, told the FT that by launching his own coin, Trump had “opened the floodgates to deception … and at a minimum to rampant speculation”
Parents sue TikTok over child deaths allegedly caused by ‘blackout challenge’
The parents of four British teenagers have sued TikTok over the deaths of their children, which they claim were the result of the viral “blackout challenge”.The lawsuit claims Isaac Kenevan, 13, Archie Battersbee, 12, Julian “Jools” Sweeney, 14, and Maia Walsh, 13, died in 2022 while attempting the “blackout challenge”, which became popular on social media in 2021.The US-based Social Media Victims Law Center filed the wrongful death lawsuit against the social media platform TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, on behalf of the children’s parents on Thursday.Matthew Bergman, the founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, said: “It’s no coincidence that three of the four children who died from self-suffocation after being exposed to the dangerous and deadly TikTok blackout challenge lived in the same city and that they all fit a similar demographic.“TikTok’s algorithm purposely targeted these children with dangerous content to increase their engagement time on the platform and drive revenue
When it comes to Le Crunch, England don’t seem to know what their best XV is | Ugo Monye
When it comes to team selection, it’s important to remember that everything is subjective. Different coaches, five million different fans and the 80,000 people in the stadium will all have different views, different affiliations and different opinions about who should be playing for England. It plays a large part of every Test week and it’s fantastic because it creates debate, it gets people talking.It is not specific to England either but the problem with Steve Borthwick’s recent team selections is that I just wish it felt like it was coming from a place of understanding exactly what his best team is and precisely how to deliver their best gameplan. I’m not sure we have clarity on either of those things yet and as much as I understand the notion of horses for courses, I would much prefer to have a sense that selection is first and foremost about yourselves rather than the opposition
Antoine Dupont ‘surprised’ at rule that deprives England of Jack Willis
The France captain, Antoine Dupont, has revealed he is surprised by the Rugby Football Union’s policy that bans Steve Borthwick from picking players based abroad and admitted he is glad he will not lock horns with his Toulouse teammate Jack Willis on Saturday.England host Dupont and co at Twickenham as they seek to improve a run of seven defeats in nine matches and do so without a raft of players who are based in France’s Top 14 and therefore considered unavailable.Indeed, while Tom Willis makes his first England start at No 8, his brother Jack is one of 11 players from England’s 2023 World Cup squad based in France and unavailable to Borthwick. That group includes the former captain Owen Farrell as well as a clutch of players enjoying fine seasons in the Top 14 such as David Ribbans, Kyle Sinckler, Manu Tuilagi and Joe Marchant. Henry Arundell, meanwhile, who has endured a difficult season at Racing 92, has signed for Bath next season
Tropea, Harborne, Birmingham: ‘A forward-thinking take on the Italian trattoria’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants
The long black: will this soon be the UK’s favourite coffee order?
Queens of the stone fruit and grape expectations: Australia’s best-value fruit and veg for February
How to make cassoulet – recipe | Felicity Cloake's Masterclass
Paprikash fish and leek and olive stew: Irina Georgescu’s recipes from the Danube
Australian supermarket corn chip taste test: ‘Salsa is not required – but electrolytes are’