Four UK families take TikTok to court over the blackout challenge

All four lost children in 2022 and blame the craze

Parents who are suing TikTok alleging the app was linked to their children’s deaths “want answers” and “accountability”.

Four bereaved British families have filed a lawsuit against the video-sharing platform in the US, and its parent firm ByteDance, over access to their children’s social media accounts.

They told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that access could clarify what had led to the deaths, with one mother asking “why hold back from giving us the data? How can they sleep at night?”

The wrongful death lawsuit claims Isaac Kenevan, 13; Archie Battersbee, 12; Julian “Jools” Sweeney, 14; and Maia Walsh, 13; all died from injuries suffered while taking part in online challenges in 2022.

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

The families of Isaac, Archie, Jools and Maia are claiming their children died after doing a so-called “blackout challenge” on TikTok.

According to TikTok, it does not allow content showing or promoting dangerous activity or challenges, and it proactively finds 99% of content removed for breaking these rules before it is reported to the firm.

During a group interview with a parent of each of the four children, Isaac’s mother claimed the platform still allowed harmful content, including challenges.

Lisa Kenevan told Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that TikTok issued “the same corporate statement every time” stories on the topic appeared in the media.

“It’s an insult”, she said, adding that the families were seeking “accountability”.

Her son’s final video showed him laughing each time he passed out, she told the programme.

“He’s been influenced by something or someone who has watched these challenges on TikTok”, she said.

March 8 2022 had been a “very ordinary day”, Ms Kenevan said.

“We came home, I was cooking dinner, he was upstairs, and he was a bit of a practical joker … when I called upstairs for dinner he didn’t answer, so I didn’t think that was unusual – then the third call to him I got desperate, and there was no answer,” she said.

“So I went running down the stairs, I got a hammer from the garage, I went running upstairs, bashed the door down and that’s where I found Isaac, unconscious.”

He died the following day.

One of his videos “had a TikTok emblem at the bottom” but police did not know if it had been posted to the site as they “didn’t search the history back any further”, Ms Kenevan said.

“So I am left with, what did he do about those videos, were they posted?”

When she let Isaac download the app during lockdown she said she had thought TikTok was “safe” and “fun”, with users taking part in “innocent challenges” including the “bottle flip, the floss, (the) ice bucket challenge”.

Maia’s father said his daughter asked him to download TikTok and “approximately six months from that point she’s dead”.

Liam Walsh described telling police “I want her data scooped” about 15 minutes after first seeing her body “because nothing else makes any sense into why this child should end up like this, nothing”.

They are being represented by the Social Media Victims’ Law Center, based in Seattle, which was founded by attorney Matthew P. Bergman in 2021.

Speaking on his YouTube channel, he said: “unbeknownst to their parents, they were directed by Tiktok algorithms to the blackout challenge, which encouraged them to choke themselves, and Ultimately they were not able to revive themselves.

“And it is neither an accident nor a coincidence, but a direct result of Tiktok design decisions to create algorithms that enhance challenges and user engagement over safety, and we continue to see cases involving children through Tiktok committing harmful acts of themselves, either injuring themselves or, in some cases, killing themselves, either deliberately or by accident.”

Published: 09/02/2025 by Radio NewsHub