People have said that TikTok “challenges” caused terrible spinal injuries, terrible burns, and, not too long ago, a world shortage of gold.
Now, the second most popular social media app in the world will have to defend itself against claims that it intentionally showed possibly dangerous videos to kids while ignoring warnings of death and destruction in order to make more money. The important case brought to life by a mother who lost her daughter and thinks TikTok is responsible for her death got a new opinion from a US appeals court on Tuesday.
In his partial concurrence, US Circuit Judge Paul Matey said that federal law “protects TikTok from being sued for hosting videos made and uploaded by third parties.” But that doesn’t mean TikTok can’t be held responsible for what Matey called the app’s claimed “knowing distribution and targeted recommendation of videos it knew could be harmful.”
On Wednesday, attorney Jeffrey Goodman told The Independent that Big Tech had lost its “get-out-of-jail-free” card. Goodman fought the appeal on behalf of the Anderson family. It’s now official that big social media companies will have to follow the same rules as all other businesses. If they hurt kids without caring, they will have to answer to the court.
They said, “The safety of our users is our top priority.”
The “Blackout Challenge” on TikTok is what killed 10-year-old Nylah Anderson, according to her mom. Tawainna Anderson, who lived in the Philadelphia area, found her daughter’s dead body on the bedroom floor in December 2021.
The “active, happy, healthy, and incredibly intelligent” girl had been trying to complete the challenge, in which users of the world’s second most popular non-gaming app choked themselves with belts, towels, or other objects until they passed out. Newlah was taken to the hospital right away, but she died there five days later.
It was said that the Blackout Challenge killed 20 children, 15 of whom were under 12 years old, over the course of 18 months, from 2021 to 2022. It’s not the only dangerous “challenge” that has gone viral, either.
One person was charged with a crime after taking the “Skullbreaker Challenge,” which involves kicking someone’s legs out from under them as they jump into the air. The challenge almost paralyzed a 13-year-old girl in Pennsylvania.
Several people have died in the so-called “Angel of Death Challenge,” a “game” in which people jump in front of moving cars to see if they’ll stop in time. And when a 12-year-old boy from Arizona tried the TikTok “Fire Challenge,” in which kids record themselves setting fires at home, he ended up in the intensive care unit (ICU) and has had several surgeries since then.
Anderson sued TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance in May 2022, saying that they knew about the Blackout Challenge and how dangerous it was but still sent the videos to kids who were easy to influence. The claim said that Nylah’s “For You” page had the Blackout Challenge on it.
At a news conference soon after filing the case, Anderson said, “I cannot stop playing that day over and over in my head.” “These dangerous problems need to end right away so that other families don’t have to deal with the heartbreak we do every day.”
Anderson’s first complaint said that TikTok executives “unquestionably knew that the deadly Blackout Challenge was spreading through its app and that its algorithm was specifically feeding the Blackout Challenge to children, including those who had died.”
TikTok told The Independent that it was putting in place controls to protect kids from material that could be harmful after Nylah’s death. The business also said there was “no evidence” of a “Blackout Challenge” on its website.
That being said, in October 2022, a federal judge threw out the case because TikTok was protected by a complicated and highly debated part of a 1996 law that Trump tried to get rid of after his tweets were called false information.
“Even though the circumstances are sad, I have to rule that Plaintiff seeks to hold Defendants liable as ‘publishers’ of third-party content, they are immune under [Section 230 of] the Communications Decency Act,” US District Judge Paul Diamond wrote in his decision to throw out the case.
TikTok did not make the videos in question, but Anderson’s lawyers said that the company “took no and/or completely inadequate action to extinguish and prevent the spread of the Blackout Challenge and specifically to prevent the Blackout Challenge from being shown to children.” In its place, TikTok kept suggesting these movies to kids like Nylah.
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit’s ruling on Tuesday means that Anderson’s lawsuit against TikTok and ByteDance can go forward again.
It said that Nylah was “still in the first year of her adolescence” and “likely had no idea what she was doing or that following along with the images on her screen would kill her.” Matey is a former white-collar criminal defense lawyer who Trump appointed to the bench in 1996.
Samuel Dordick, Goodman’s co-counsel, said in his own statement, “For decades, Big Tech companies like TikTok have used Section 230 to protect themselves from accountability for their egregious and predatory conduct.” With this strong decision, it is clear that Section 230 does not go that far.
What Anderson said was this: “Nothing will bring back our beautiful baby girl.” This was said through Goodman and Dordick. But it makes us feel better to know that by holding TikTok responsible for our disaster, other families may be able to avoid unimaginable pain in the future.