TikTok is the target of multiple lawsuits, alleging the company's algorithm surfaced 'Blackout Challenge' videos that led to users' deaths.
We should add that this news comes two years after the Trump administration tried to engineer a ban of TikTok from the US on national security grounds. Trump officials thought the app’s China-based parent company represented a threat. In response, the company insisted that its US arm was sufficiently walled off from the corporate mothership.It turns out, though, that the claims from TikTok weren’t true.
Meanwhile, TikTok’s bad press keeps multiplying. Against that backdrop comes news that the app may have motivated several young people to partake in a viral challenge that led to their deaths. The blackout challenge, according to one complaint, “encourages users to choke themselves with belts, purse strings, or anything similar until passing out.”In response to the blackout challenge videos proliferating on the app, TikTok has said it now blocks users from searching for them.
Importantly, though, at least some of the lawsuits against TikTok over this issue say the children who died never search for the videos proactively. That, actually, Twitter’s algorithm put it in front of their eyes on its own, via the app’s For You page.
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