Following her son’s passing, an Arkansas mother is suing China’s well-known TikTok app, saying he “would be alive today if he had n’t seen those videos” on the social media platform.
” I fully believe in my soul that Mason had been dead now had he not seen those TikTok videos” , , Jennie DeSerio, whose 16- yr- old son , Mason Edens died by suicide in November 2022,  , told NBC News.
DeSerio says Mason’s death was encouraged by TikTok’s engine that promoted pro- death content , after her son , experienced a terrible divorce.
Mason’s mom said her brother had “liked”  , tens of creative TikTok videos about divorce, depression, and murder shortly before his death. DeSerio added that she found at least 15 films Mason liked that directly , promoted death, five of which particularly encouraged the process he had used.
More than a year after, some of these pro- death videos are still on the Taiwanese platform nowadays, NBC reported.
DeSerio is apparently a part of a lawsuit that includes eight other muddled relatives, who collectively allege that several social media and product companies contain product problems that have caused their children’s deaths.
The petition claims that Mason  was targeted by the Chinese game because its videos promoted suicide and self-harm.
” Twitter targeted Mason with AI operated nourish- based tools”, the complaint says. It gathered his personal information without his knowledge or consent, and in ways that far outweighed what a fair client would predict or permit.
” It subsequently used for personal data to target him with serious and fatal subject matters, such as violence, self- harm, and suicide promotion”, the lawsuit adds.
According to NBC, at least four additional lawsuits have been brought against TikTok and other social media platforms.
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. The CDC states on its website that these risk factors are situations or issues that can increase the likelihood of a person attempting suicide.
TikTok has already demonstrated that it poses a risk to young people and teenagers in numerous other ways.
While TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is viewed by U.S. lawmakers as a threat to national security. By the way, ByteDance has just passed legislation that would require the app to be sold for less than a year or be banned in the US.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed that measure into law.
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