Bereaved parents take on TikTok

Fiona Lamdin,West of England home and social affairs correspondent,

Jonathan Holmes,West of EnglandAnd

Sammy Jenkins,West of England

BBC Ellen Roome was sitting in her living room, looking at the camera. He has medium length brown hair and a pink and white shirt. — Ellen Roome is campaigning for a law that would allow parents to access their children’s social media accounts if they die

A mother who is among a group of British parents suing TikTok after the death of her children has said she wants “liability” from the social media firm.

Ellen Roome is in the USA on the first day of the hearing opened by the Social Media Victims Law Center. He said: “We need to hold them accountable and say, ‘What are you showing our children?’ It’s time for us to say “

The lawsuit alleges that son Julian “Jools” Sweeney, Isaac Kenevan, Archie Battersbee, Noah Gibson and Maia Walsh died during an attempted “passing challenge.”

A TikTok spokesperson said: “We strictly prohibit content that promotes or encourages dangerous behavior.”

From left to right: Parents Hollie Dance, Lisa Kenevan, Liam Walsh and Ellen Roome

From left to right: Parents Hollie Dance, Lisa Kenevan, Liam Walsh and Ellen Roome sitting in chairs — From left to right: Parents Hollie Dance, Lisa Kenevan, Liam Walsh and Ellen Roome

The lawsuit, filed in Delaware State Supreme Court, alleges that the child deaths were “the foreseeable result of ByteDance’s engineered addiction and programming decisions” that were “intended to push children to maximize their interactions with TikTok by any means necessary.”

Roome said: “We are having our first hearing with TikTok and it is called a Motion to Dismiss hearing.

“So TikTok is trying to kick us out and our lawyers are saying ‘no, we have a case here.’

“If we go past this stage, we discover that TikTok will be forced to publish our children’s data unless they have deleted it.”

PA Media Jools (left) and Ellen (right) sit together at a tea party and take a selfie. Jools has short blonde hair and wears a gray top. Ellen has a blonde bob and wears a white, pink, and navy striped sweater. — Roome’s son Jools dies in 2022

Jools, 14, died at his home in Cheltenham, Gloucesteshire, in 2022. The coroner gave a revealing verdict at his inquest and ruled out suicide. Roome believes his son died after an online challenge It went wrong.

Thirteen-year-old Isaac, from Basildon, Essex, also died after an incident in which he was believed to have participated. so-called drowning struggle.

Similarly, the parents of 13-year-old Maia, who was found dead at her home in Hertfordshire in October 2022. I believe you joined an online challenge. The inquest into his death will examine his use of TikTok.

While the coroner rules that 12-year-old Archie died accidentally after a “prank or experiment” goes wrong At home in Southend-on-Sea in April 2022. The coroner said there was no evidence he issued an online challenge at the time, as his mother believed.

In October, Roome confirmed that the four original families who filed the lawsuit were joined by Louise Gibson from Worcestershire, who believes her 11-year-old son Noah died in similar circumstances.

Archie died accidentally after a ‘prank or experiment’ went wrong

Hollie Dance A woman smiles as she sits with a young boy. She has blonde hair like her mother. They look happy together. — Archie died accidentally after a ‘prank or experiment’ went wrong

Roome said the case “is not about money.”

“I want to see what my child is looking at, and if it’s social media, I want accountability.

“Social media companies are feeding our children harmful materials.

“They make their products addictive by design, so they automatically attract the attention of children and adults.”

He added that it’s time for “these big companies to actually become responsible and take some responsibility.”

“I don’t think they have any morality about properly taking care of our children,” Roome said.

Walsh and Roome, along with two other parents, are in the US for the first hearing

Ellen Roome and Liam Walsh are walking on a street in the USA. They are both wearing winter coats. — Walsh and Roome, along with two other parents, are in the US for the first hearing

TikTok chiefs said their “deepest sympathies remain with these families.”

“We strictly prohibit content that promotes or encourages dangerous behavior.

“By using powerful detection systems and dedicated enforcement teams to proactively detect and remove this content, we remove 99% of those found to violate these rules before we are notified,” a TikTok spokesperson said.

TikTok is proposing to dismiss the case because the court lacks jurisdiction over defendants who are predominantly located in the United Kingdom and because established U.S. laws, such as the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, exclude liability for third-party content hosted on TikTok.

Isaac’s mother Lisa Kenevan previously spoke to BBC Breakfast about her son

Matthew Bergman, the founding lawyer of the Social Media Victims Legal Centre, who represented the five parents, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Program that the issue of online harm was one where “politics come together”.

“We all love our kids, whether they’re liberals, conservatives, Republicans or Democrats, and we can all come together on this. It looks like we’re doing that, and that’s very pleasing,” he said.

Bergman said he believes a “combination of laws,” “use of the civil justice system” to hold companies financially responsible, and a “court of opinion” change would be possible and keep more children safe from online harm.

“We are seeing that public officials, judges, and influencers truly understand the clear and present threat that social media poses to the mental and physical safety of our youth,” he added.