Lawsuit: China's TikTok Flooded Teen with Pro-Suicide Content Before His Death
Mario Tama/Getty Images, AP Photo/Andy Wong
An Arkansas mother is suing China's popular TikTok app following the death of her son, saying he “would be alive today had he not seen those videos” on the Chinese social media platform.
“I completely believe in my heart that Mason would be alive today had he not seen those TikTok videos,” Jennie DeSerio, whose 16-year-old son Mason Edens died by suicide in November 2022, told NBC News.
DeSerio says Mason's suicide was encouraged by TikTok's algorithm that promoted pro-suicide content after her son experienced a bad breakup.
Mason's mother said her son had “liked” dozens of graphic TikTok videos about breakups, depression, and suicide shortly before his death. DeSerio added that she found at least 15 videos Mason liked that directly promoted suicide, five of which specifically encouraged the method he had used.
More than a year later, some of these pro-suicide videos are still on the Chinese platform today, NBC reported.
DeSerio is now reportedly part of a lawsuit that includes eight other mourning parents who collectively allege that several social media companies contain product defects that have led to their children's deaths.
The lawsuit claims the Chinese app targeted Mason with videos that promoted suicide and self-harm.
“TikTok targeted Mason with AI driven feed-based tools,” the complaint states. “It collected his private information, without his knowledge or consent, and in manners that far exceeded anything a reasonable consumer would anticipate or allow.”
“It then used such personal data to target him with extreme and deadly subject matters, such as violence, self-harm, and suicide promotion,” the lawsuit adds.
At least four other lawsuits have been filed against TikTok and other social media companies, NBC noted.
Two tribal nations reportedly took action against TikTok, Meta, Snap, and Google in another lawsuit filed this month, claiming these social media platforms are addictive and dangerous, and have led to higher suicide rates among Native Americans.
Notably, suicide is a complicated issue, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) saying it is “rarely caused by a single circumstance or event.”
“Instead, a range of factors — at the individual, relationship, community, and societal levels — can increase risk. These risk factors are situations or problems that can increase the possibility that a person will attempt suicide,” the CDC says on its website.
Nonetheless, TikTok has already shown itself to be a danger to kids and teens in various other ways.
Meanwhile, TikTok — whose parent company ByteDance is beholden to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — is widely considered a national security threat by U.S. lawmakers, who recently passed legislation that would force ByteDance to sell the app under a year or else be banned in the United States.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed that measure into law.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and X/Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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