Last December, a 10-year-old girl died after attempting the BlackOut Challenge, which involves holding her breath until she passes out.
Popular with young people, TikTok is also known for dangerous challenges, even mortals present on its platform. The social network is the target of a lawsuit because of one of these challenges. On May 12, Tawainna Anderson filed a complaint against TikTok and its parent company Bytedance after the death of its 10-year-old daughter. She had attempted to take up the “BlackOut Challenge”, a challenge consisting of holding her breath until she passed out. As a result of this, also known as the ‘headscarf game’, she was found unconscious on December 7 and taken to hospital where she died five days later.
The algorithm from TikTok is implicated in the complaint because the “BlackOut Challenge” was recommended on the girl’s For You page. He determined that the challenge was suitable and likely to interest him. “TikTok’s app and algorithm are intentionally designed to maximize user engagement and addiction and powerfully encourage kids to engage in a repetitive, dopamine-driven feedback loop of watching, sharing, and attempting viral challenges and other videos »says the complaint.
A deadly challenge for several children
TikTok reacted to this legal action by saying to remain vigilant in its commitment to user safety and to immediately remove “related content if found”. The company also defended itself regarding the presence of the challenge on its social network: “The ‘disturbing’ challenge, which people seem to know about from sources other than TikTok, long predates our platform and was never a TikTok trend. ».
However, the young girl is not the first victim of the “headscarf game” on the social network. According to the complaint, four other children died after attempting it. Among them, a girl of the same age in January 2021. To protect minors, the country then decided to temporarily block TikTok for users whose age was not guaranteed. Children are not supposed to be able to register on social networks before the age of 13, but they are still present on these platforms.
This complaint is in addition to the investigation opened by attorneys general in March about the potential harm TikTok could cause to young users. As part of this, it is the methods and techniques of the social network to stimulate the commitment of the latter that are studied.