‘Blackout Challenge’: Viral TikTok Trend Lands Company In Legal Trouble

Video-sharing platform TikTok is facing multiple lawsuits from parents who alleged their children choked to death while taking part in the "Blackout Challenge."

The challenge, where TikTok users asphyxiate themselves until they pass out, has been blamed for the deaths of teenagers in many parts of the world.

TikTok is being sued in California because, according to the lawsuit, the platform "intentionally and repeatedly" promoted the challenge, which resulted in the deaths of two young girls last year -- an 8-year-old in Texas and a 9-year-old in Wisconsin. The case was filed last week in state court in Los Angeles.

In March, a 12-year-old from Colorado was critically injured and hospitalized after reportedly participating in the challenge. Earlier, a 10-year-old kid died in Italy in February. A 10-year-old girl in Pennsylvania was found dead in December 2021. All three cases were linked to alleged participation in the challenge The Washington Post reported.

The originator of the viral trend is yet unknown. The "Blackout Challenge" gained significant media attention after three young children died in Italy in January 2021, while taking part in it, The New York Times reported, citing the website Know Your Meme.

TikTok has not responded to International Business Times' request for a comment on the current lawsuits. However, the social media platform had told People magazine after the 10-year-old's death in Pennsylvania the "disturbing challenge" predated their platform and had never become "a TikTok trend," adding the platform vowed to "remain vigilant in our commitment to user safety" and "immediately remove related content if found."

However, the parents' legal team at the Social Media Victims Law Center’s complaint mentioned TikTok "unquestionably knew" the challenge was going viral all over their platform, while adding they "should have known that failing to take immediate and significant action to extinguish the spread of the deadly Blackout Challenge would result in more injuries and deaths, especially among children and teenagers."

Similar “choking games” can be traced back to the past couple of decades.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had issued a warning about a choking game in which young people indulged in “self-strangulation or strangulation by another person.” This was in the year 2008, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported.

In the year 2010, the CDC attributed 82 deaths in the country between 1995 and 2007 to a choking game the young people were playing. Various names for similar choking games include the “pass out challenge,” or “speed dreaming,” "the game of choking" or "the fainting game," as per media reports.

Ever since, medical experts have urged parents to have “open and honest” conversations with their children about what they are consuming on social media platforms.

Socially isolated children face the most risk, especially the ones suffering from depression or social anxiety, Dr. Estevan Garcia, chief medical officer at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Massachusetts, said, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported.