To what extent are ‘TikTok challenges’ to blame for recent tragedies?

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The harmful potential of digital technology has never been more concerning.

Artificial intelligence is already outmaneuvering us, and doxxing and deepfake have become part of the common lexicon, so it’s no wonder we live in fear of what’s to come for our children.

We already deplore that young people live their lives as much on social networks as in the real world, but to what extent can we blame these platforms for everyday mistakes and, even, dramas?

To answer that question, we have to turn to two words that scare parents the world over.

They are: TikTok and challenge.

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For the uninitiated, trends and challenges are the lifeblood of the video-sharing app.

What started as a light-hearted scene for lip-syncing and dancing routines (originally called Musical.ly), is now a hive of endless hashtags, each encouraging a new stunt or craze.

The TikToks algorithm is a formidable, unpredictable beast, with the power to propel content creators to global stardom and seven-figure earnings and create entire new brands.

But while most of us can forgive the platform for inviting pink sauce and Charli d’Amelio into our homes, we won’t forget its more sinister abilities.

Indeed, moms and dads not only have to deal with the influence of some notorious brainwashers, but they also face the prospect of losing their child to a dangerous prank, all for a few likes and the fleeting respect of their peers.

A number of serious injuries and deaths have now been attributed to misguided attempts to trend the app, with the so-called blackout challenge alone being found guilty of killing at least 20 children aged 14 or younger in the past two years, a Bloomberg survey from Businessweek found.

Archie Battersbee, 12, was said to have been a big part of the self-choking craze before he was found unconscious by his mother in 2022. Hed suffered a catastrophic brain injury and died four months later.

Then, in April this year, 13-year-old Jacob Stevens died in hospital six days after taking the Benedryl Challenge, according to his grieving father.

And less than a month ago, 16-year-old Mason Dark was left unrecognizable with burns after creating a makeshift blowtorch as part of an alleged TikTok stunt.

Jacob Stevens died in hospital six days after allegedly attempting the so-called ‘Benadryl Challenge’

Yet there is little, if any, evidence that the platform helped fuel the tragedies suffered by each of these particular children.

In Archie’s case, an inquest found there was no evidence to support his mother’s fear that he had completed the blackout challenge.

A police report concluded that the 12-year-old accessed TikTok on his mobile phone on the day of his fatal accident, but officers were unable to determine exactly what he was watching.

However, photos and videos uploaded from the device provided no indication that he expressed interest in any self-asphyxiation material.

Similarly, TikTok has taken center stage in reports of Jacobs’ death, but a company spokesperson told indy100: “We’ve never seen this type of content (i.e. say the challenge Benadryl) trending on our platform and have blocked searches for years to help discourage copycat behavior.

And while it’s been almost universally reported that a “TikTok challenge” inspired Mason to create his near-deadly flamethrower, no outlets were able to provide specifics on the matter. Could it be that he got the idea from another source or platform?

Mason before and after the devastating accidentHolli Dark/GoFundMe

Indeed, YouTube is home to plenty of do-it-yourself blowtorch videos, some of which date back several years, which means that many of these trending projects were around before TikTok even existed.

Yet despite TikTok claiming it carefully monitors hashtags so it can block potentially harmful content, a quick search of the flamethrower challenge by indy100 turned up at least five examples of creators wielding dangerous homemade devices. Admittedly, one of them was captioned: Don’t try this at home, but doesn’t that sound like a challenge in itself?

Social media companies are under increasing pressure to protect their young users from online harm and to better enforce age restrictions. And yet, even with the employment of increasingly sophisticated AIs and tens of thousands of human moderators, they seem to consistently fail in their duties.

Still, just look at recent headlines and it’s clear that TikTok seems to be taking most of the blame.

That may be because it’s the platform of choice for the very young and impressionable, it’s the most popular app in the US, used by nearly 70% of 13-17 year olds. years, according to a survey.

But it may also be because TikToks’ biggest rival launched a big campaign to tarnish its reputation last year, and it’s still reeling from it.

Meta hired one of the most influential Republican consulting firms in the United States to turn the public against the platform, making it clear that the app was a danger to American children and society.

The company, Targeted Victory, used a nationwide media and lobbying campaign to spread the message that TikTok was a threat, according to leaked emails seen by The Washington Post.

One of his tactics was to promote questionable stories about alleged TikTok trends which, in fact, originated from Facebook, the newspaper noted.

In another email, a Targeted Victory staff member asked one of the company’s partners: any local examples of bad TikTok trends/stories in your markets? [The] dream would be to get stories with titles like From Dance to Danger: How TikTok Became the Most Harmful Social Media Space for Kids.

Following the Posts investigation, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone defended the campaign, saying: We believe all platforms, including TikTok, should be subject to scrutiny consistent with their growing success.

TikTok responded by saying it was deeply concerned about feeding local media reports on alleged trends that weren’t found on the platform.

And yet, for all its protestations of innocence when it comes to hosting high-risk content, TikTok was essentially the architect of its own problems.

Alex Zhu, co-founder of Musical.ly which merged with ByteDance to become TIkTokGetty Images

In 2016, Alex Zhu, co-founder of what was then Musical.ly, boasted that his app was different from competitors thanks to its promotion of “daily challenges”.

Every day, the company gave users a new task, whether it was a dance routine or a weightlifting assignment, each of which typically spawned more than a million videos, according to Bloomberg.

When Musical.ly was acquired by Beijing-based platform ByteDance in 2017, and the two merged to become TikTok, the challenges came with it.

These trends struck a chord with teenagers stuck at home during the first wave of the Covid pandemic, and so TikTok staff did all they could to stimulate interest, for example by nudging influencers to encourage involvement.

When more and more dangerous splurges started popping up (remember the milk crate challenge?), TikTok drew up a damage spectrum to help its moderators decide what to remove, said Eric Han, the U.S. corporate security officer to Bloomberg.

Nonetheless, the kids may be naive but they’re not stupid, and they quickly found ways around filters and restrictions.

Participants adopted new names and hashtags for the challenges, in some cases using deliberate typos or codenames to flag their content.

The challenges have also been carried over to different platforms, infesting social media as a whole with weird, goofy, and downright deadly elements.

And so, we return to our original question: to what extent can we blame these platforms and, more specifically, TikTok for the mistakes, injuries and even deaths of young people?

The answer is that it is not about assigning blame, but about taking responsibility and collectively doing all we can to protect our children.

The likes of Facebook, Instagram and, yes, TikTok too, all need to do more to enforce age limits and remove harmful content, and stop putting growth ahead of the safety of their young users.

However, we must also accept that children will always find ways to break the rules, and it is up to us, family members and friends, to remind them that a cheap thrill in your social life is not worth the penalty of losing your whole life.

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