Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania family files lawsuit against TikTok after attorney says girl died trying social media challenge
PHILADELPHIA – A Delaware County household is suing TikTok after a younger woman died whereas making an attempt a social media problem they declare that she noticed on the app.
The household of 10-year-old Nylah Anderson, who died in December, filed a wrongful dying lawsuit in opposition to the social media large Thursday in Philadelphia.
Lawyer Jeffrey Goodman, a accomplice on the agency representing the Anderson household, known as TikTok a “dangerously standard app” and warned that what occurred to Nylah may occur to any youngster.
“The character of the lawsuit is that TikTok, by way of their algorithms, determined that it was a great determination to ship a how-to video to a 10-year-old on asphyxiate oneself,” Goodman mentioned.
He defined that TikTok is exclusive from different social media apps and web sites like YouTube. TikTok’s “entire enterprise mannequin,” in line with Goodman, facilities round its ‘For You’ web page, a bit of the app that procures content material based mostly on a person’s viewing habits.
“With TikTok you see the movies that it places in entrance of you and the aim of the algorithm is to try to get customers hooked,” Goodman mentioned. “The aim is to attempt to get customers, and the customers are sometimes youngsters, to attempt to get them addicted.”
When FOX 29 reached out to TikTok for remark, a spokesperson mentioned the lethal problem “lengthy predates our platform and has by no means been a TikTok development.”
“We stay vigilant in our dedication to person security and would instantly take away associated content material if discovered,” an announcement from TikTok learn.
In the meantime, Twanna Anderson and her lawyer’s mentioned at a press convention Friday that they wished to raised perceive TikTok’s algorithm to try to forestall one other mindless dying by the hands of a social media problem.