UK parents suing TikTok over children’s deaths ‘suspicious’ about data claims | TikTok

Four British parents who are suing TikTok for the alleged wrongful deaths of their children say they are “suspicious” about the social media platform’s claim to have deleted their children’s data.

The parents have filed a lawsuit in the US that claims that their four children died in 2022 as a result of attempting the “blackout challenge”, a viral trend that circulated on social media in 2021.

The week after the lawsuit was filed, a TikTok executive said that there were some things “we simply don’t have” because of “legal requirements around when we remove data”. Under UK GDPR rules, platforms are obliged to not keep personal data for longer than necessary.

However, the parents were surprised that their children’s data would be deleted so quickly.

“The first reaction is it’s a complete lie,” said Lisa Kenevan, whose son Isaac died aged 13.

Liam Walsh expressed scepticism that TikTok would have deleted data for his daughter, Maia, who died aged 14, given that, unlike the other three children, her inquest remains open.

Ellen Roome is campaigning in parliament for the introduction of a “Jools’ law”, in tribute to her 12-year-old son Julian, which would give parents the automatic right to their children’s data after their deaths.

“If there was a paper diary in their [children’s] bedroom, I guarantee you every single parent would have read that diary to see if they could understand. What’s happened now is that has moved online and for kids social media is the equivalent of a diary. So why are we not looking at their online diary to see if it can give us some sort of answer?” she said.

Hollie Dance said that because her son, Archie Battersbee, was 12 when he died she had the automatic right to his data, because GDPR rules apply only from the age of 13, yet has still struggled to obtain it. “There’s still three [of his] accounts that are up. I can see them for myself,” she said.

According to TikTok, searches for videos or hashtags related to the challenge have been blocked since 2020. The platform says it prohibits dangerous content or challenges and aims to remove them before they are reported and direct those who search for hashtags or videos to its safety centre.

Dance said she had screenshots of dangerous challenges that she had been able to find easily.

The parents said they wished they had never allowed their children to access social media, and they did not realise how limited their rights to access their children’s data were.

“We’re basically handing our children a hand grenade,” said Kenevan. “A child’s brain is not fully developed until around 25. The amount of content they are bombarded with, it’s not healthy for them. A lot of them have seen such harmful content. They’ve seen pornography at the age of, like, 10 and 11. They don’t need social media.”

This year, the Online Safety Act comes into force, which will create a duty of care for platforms to take action against illegal content or content that could be harmful to children where they are likely to come into contact with it. Walsh said he had “no faith” in Ofcom, which will implement the act.

Dance said the platforms should pay an organisation to “screen every single video” before it was uploaded.

Walsh said that if the US courts determined that “an algorithm sent my child destructive videos and it led to her mindset being into a downward spiral of which she didn’t feel she could get out of”, then he would like to bring corporate manslaughter charges in the UK courts.

Roome said the families had filed the lawsuit in the US after coming across the Social Media Victims Law Center because they couldn’t get any UK lawyers to take on the case on a pro bono basis.

She said for now the priority was to “make a difference” for other parents and families. “It’s hard, it’s emotionally draining, but we’re going to actually achieve something here.”