- Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
- A US climate scientist sees hurricane Helene's devastation firsthand
- Padres edge Dodgers, Mets on the brink
- Can carbon credits help close coal plants?
- With EU funding, Tunisian farmer revives parched village
- Sega ninja game 'Shinobi' gets movie treatment
- Boeing suspends negotiations with striking workers
- 7-Eleven owner's shares spike on report of new buyout offer
- Your 'local everything': what 7-Eleven buyout battle means for Japan
- Three million UK children living below poverty line: study
- China's Jia brings film spanning love, change over decades to Busan
- Paying out disaster relief before climate catastrophe strikes
- Chinese shares drop on stimulus upset, Asia tracks Wall St higher
- SE Asian summit seeks progress on Myanmar civil war
- How climate funds helped Peru's women beekeepers stay afloat
- Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded as wars rage
- Pacific island nations swamped by global drug trade
- AI-aided research, new materials eyed for Nobel Chemistry Prize
- Mozambique elects new president in tense vote
- The US economy is solid: Why are voters gloomy?
- Balkan summit to rally support for struggling Ukraine
- New stadium gives Real Madrid a headache
- Alonso, Manaea shine as 'Miracle Mets' blitz Phillies
- Harris, Trump trade blows in US election media blitz
- Harry's Bar in Paris drinks to US straw-poll centenary
- Osama bin Laden's son Omar banned from returning to France
- Afghan man arrested for plotting US election day attack
- Brazil lifts ban on Musk's X, ending standoff over disinformation
- Harris holds slight edge nationally over Trump: poll
- Chelsea edge Real Madrid in Women's Champions League, Lyon win
- Japan PM to dissolve parliament for 'honeymoon' snap election
- 'Diego Lives': Immersive Maradona exhibit hits Barcelona
- Brazil Supreme Court lifts ban on Musk's X
- Scientists sound AI alarm after winning physics Nobel
- Six-year-old girl among missing after Brazil landslide
- Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create
- Mexico president rules out new 'war on drugs'
- Israeli defense minister postpones trip to Washington: Pentagon
- Europe skipper Donald in talks with Garcia over Ryder return
- Kenya MPs vote to impeach deputy president in historic move
- Former US coach Berhalter named Chicago Fire head coach
- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
- Sparks fly as Orban berates EU 'elites' in parliament trip
- US finalizes rule to remove lead pipes within a decade
- Solanke hungry for second England cap after seven-year wait
- Gilded canopy restored at Vatican basilica
TikTok sued in US after girls die in 'Blackout Challenge'
Video-sharing sensation TikTok is being sued in California after children died while taking part in a "Blackout Challenge" that makes a sport of choking oneself until passing out.
The lawsuit filed in state court in Los Angeles last week accuses TikTok software of "intentionally and repeatedly" pushing the Blackout Challenge that led to the deaths of an eight-year-old girl in Texas and a nine-year-old girl in Wisconsin last year.
"TikTok needs to be held accountable for pushing deadly content to these two young girls," said Matthew Bergman, an attorney at the Social Media Victims Law Center, which filed the suit.
"TikTok has invested billions of dollars to intentionally design products that push dangerous content that it knows are dangerous and can result in the deaths of its users."
TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suit alleges that TikTok's algorithm promoted the Blackout Challenge to each of the girls, who died from self-strangulation -- one using rope and the other a dog leash.
It additionally listed children in Italy, Australia and elsewhere whose deaths have been linked to the TikTok Blackout Challenge.
TikTok has featured and promoted an array of challenges in which users film themselves taking part in themed acts that are sometimes dangerous.
Among the litany of TikTok challenges described in court documents was the "Skull Breaker Challenge" in which people have their legs kicked out from under them while jumping so they flip and hit their heads.
The "Coronavirus Challenge" involves licking random items and surfaces in public during the pandemic, and the "Fire Challenge" involves dousing things with flammable liquid and setting them ablaze, court documents said.
The suit calls for a judge to order TikTok to stop hooking children via its algorithm and promoting dangerous challenges, and to pay unspecified cash damages.
A.Jones--AMWN