Seven families have filed a joint legal complaint against TikTok in France, accusing the video platform of exposing their teenage children to content about suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and other mental health problems that they argue encouraged them to hurt themselves.
The parents accuse TikTok of contributing to “the worsening of their children’s physical and mental health”, their lawyer Laure Boutron-Marmion told Franceinfo radio.
She filed a civil lawsuit on their behalf at a court outside Paris on Monday, she announced, describing it as the one of the first in Europe to aim to force the Chinese social media network to take legal responsibility for potentially harmful content served up by its algorithm.
One of the plaintiffs, the mother of a girl who turned to TikTok when she was subjected to bullying, told Franceinfo: “The algorithm picked up on her search style and suggested other content that went from bad to worse, about depression and cutting.
“TikTok amplified her unhappiness, flooding her with content that teenagers her age should never see.”
Two of the families lost their adolescent children to suicide, while the others say their teenagers attempted to end their lives or suffered eating disorders.
Credit: rfi
