TikTok sued by parents of UK teens who allegedly died in viral trend

TikTok has been sued by the parents of four British teenagers who believe their children died taking part in a viral trend on the app.

The lawsuit, filed in the US state of Delaware, claims Archie Battersbee, 12, Isaac Kenevan and Maia Walsh, 13, and 14-year-old Julian “Jools” Sweeney all died from injuries suffered while taking part in online challenges in 2022.

It accuses TikTok of pushing dangerous pranks and challenge videos to children to boost engagement time on the platform.

The families “want answers” about their children’s deaths and access to their social media accounts and data.

Archie Battersbee, 12; Isaac Kenevan, 13; Maia Walsh, 13; and Julian “Jools” Sweeney, 14. / Credit: PA/ Handout

The US-based Social Media Victims Law Centre (SMVLC), said it had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the video-sharing platform and its parent firm, ByteDance, on behalf of the families.

14-year-old Jools Sweeney died in 2022. An inquest found that he had taken his own life. Jools’s mother, Ellen Roome, believes her son could have died after taking part in an online challenge gone wrong.

Ms Roome, a businesswoman from Cheltenham, said the families hope to force a response from tech firms on the issue and that she “just wants answers” about her son’s death.

The 48-year-old added that social media firms had so far refused to give her access to her son’s accounts, saying a court order was required to do so.

Ms Roome said she had been “shocked” to learn that she “wasn’t entitled” to Jools’s data and said it was “the only piece that we haven’t looked at, to look at why he took his own life”.

She said it had been “horrendously difficult” to “not understand why” her son had died.

Ellen Roome’s son, Jools Sweeney, 14, was discovered unconscious in his bedroom in April 2022. / Credit: PA/ Handout

“One day, all of the four children, none of them had mental health issues, it was completely out of the blue, they all decided to take their life – more importantly, I don’t think they intended to take their life,” she said.

“This is our opportunity to get answers. It’s incredibly hard and emotional to lose a child, and this has given us a possibility of understanding exactly what happened that night.”

Ms Roome has also been campaigning for “Jools’ Law” to give parents the right to access their children’s online activity after they die – and the issue was debated in Parliament in January after an online petition for the campaign gained more than 126,000 signatures.

“Without social media companies releasing it, I still don’t know what he was looking at, was there somebody weird messaging him? I just don’t know,” she added.

“So my fight has just been, ‘all we want is our children’s data’.”

Ms Roome said: “I know that I was a loving mum to my son, and I know my son loved me, so I don’t really care what everybody else says. I want to know the truth.

“We shouldn’t have had to go this far to get our children’s data. Why didn’t they just say, ‘Here’s the data, I hope you get some closure?’ They could have handed this over and said, ‘let me help you’ – and nobody has ever tried to help us.”

Ellen Roome is seeking answers about why her son, Jools Sweeney, died. She believes it could have been an online challenge gone wrong. / Credit: PA/ Handout

Matthew Bergman, from the SMVLC, said: “TikTok’s algorithm purposely targeted these children with dangerous content to increase their engagement time on the platform and drive revenue.

“It was a clear and deliberate business decision by TikTok that cost these four children their lives.”

TikTok has been approached for comment. It has previously said searches for videos or hashtags related to the blackout challenge are blocked.

In 2021, it said it was strengthening its detection and enforcement of rules around dangerous online challenges.

But TikTok has faced multiple accusations from parents of dead children, claiming the app recommended harmful content to them.

The SMVLC helped Tawainna Anderson sue the platform in 2022, after her 10-year-old daughter Nyla died after allegedly taking part in the blackout challenge and asphyxiating herself.

Asked how she responded after being told the lawsuit had been filed, Ms Roome said: “There’s an overwhelming excitement of a possible chance of answers, but there’s also that underlying grief of ‘We’re doing this because our children are dead’.

“I’m not stopping. There’s nothing in this world which would stop me. I want answers. This isn’t about money or anything like that. I want the answers.”