As challenges and trends surface on TikTok, people of all ages attempt to recreate them. A recent challenge that has resurfaced, the “blackout challenge”, took the lives of two young girls. Following their tragic deaths, TikTok is being sued for wrongful death.

What is the Challenge?

The blackout challenge is when people essentially choke themselves, cutting off the airflow to their brain until they get to the point of passing out. 

What Happened?

Two girls, one eight and the other nine, were allegedly fed videos of the viral challenge by the app’s algorithm. After seeing the videos on their feed, they decided to give it a try, which lead to their deaths. The blackout challenge has also been linked to at least four other deaths. Following the death of the children, a lawsuit was filed against TikTok. The lawsuit alleges that the algorithm that TikTok was following was targeted towards young girls, and they did nothing to stop the challenge from spreading. A TikTok spokesperson responded to questions about the lawsuit by claiming the trend was never on their platform, and that it is an old trend. 

The lawsuit is ongoing, however it does highlight an ongoing issue within social media. There have been many dangerous and or deadly challenges that have surfaced in the past years. The Tide pod challenge, Benadryl challenge, milk crate challenge and more have posed a risk to the public with little warning.

As painfully unnecessary the death of any human being is, especially a child, when a company is sued it must have the proper protection in place to be able to both compensate the injured person or their loved ones in the event of alleged professional negligence and to afford the legal costs involved in litigation today.

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