Despite the fun of following the exciting trends in the TikTok short video app, there is a dark side to it that is life-threatening especially to children.
Most recently, a 10-year-old child living in Philadelphia USA (US), Nylah Anderson has lost her life after making a challenge (trending challenge) that saw her choke herself to the point of fainting.
The unfortunate child who lost consciousness was rushed to hospital and placed in the intensive care unit (ICU) before he breathed his last on December 7.
As a result, the Anderson family has filed a lawsuit against TikTok's parent company, ByteDance Inc, which is believed to have failed to block the challenge algorithm on their ‘for you page’.
Filed by the mother of the victim, Tawainna Anderson explained that during the incident her son’s device was displaying a video of the challenge which she believed the deceased was doing the same trend as seen.
A little description of the trend, participants are understood to strangle themselves by using household items such as shoelaces or wire cords until they faint for a few seconds and record reactions as soon as they are conscious.
Tawainna added that the challenge was just one of thousands of life-threatening challenges, and should have been blocked from being seen by children.
A TikTok spokesperson has expressed their sympathy to the victim's family but did not comment further on the ongoing litigation of the case.
In self -defense, the company stated that the ‘crazy’ challenge was not originally from TikTok sources but uploaded into their app and ByteDance will remain committed in ensuring user safety as well as the type of content displayed.
Looking at this, there have been many cases of danger of seeing minors related to social media applications.
Just look at Instagram which is now actively developing a special Instagram app for kids and the case where Snapchat has caused a road accident.
Despite the age of the TikTok app which is still a corn year, it has seen a 75% increase in users by 2020 alone and introduced a variety of exciting challenges.
However, with the increase in the community, there are also more risks and responsibilities that need to be borne to ensure the security of the platform.
