Within the second when her world shattered three years in the past, Stephanie Mistre discovered her 15-year-old daughter, Marie, lifeless within the bed room the place she died by suicide.
“I went from gentle to darkness in a fraction of a second,” Mistre stated, describing the day in September 2021 that marked the begin of her struggle in opposition to TikTok, the Chinese language-owned video app she blames for pushing her daughter towards despair.
Delving into her daughter’s cellphone after her loss of life, Mistre found movies selling suicide strategies, tutorials and feedback encouraging customers to transcend “mere suicide makes an attempt.”
She stated TikTok’s algorithm had repeatedly pushed such content material to her daughter.
“It was brainwashing,” stated Mistre, who lives in Cassis, close to Marseille, within the south of France. “They normalized melancholy and self-harm, turning it right into a twisted sense of belonging.”
Now Mistre and 6 different households are suing TikTok France, accusing the platform of failing to reasonable dangerous content material and exposing youngsters to life-threatening materials.
Out of the seven households, two skilled the loss of a kid.
Requested concerning the lawsuit, TikTok stated its tips forbid any promotion of suicide and that it employs 40,000 belief and security professionals worldwide — a whole lot of that are French-speaking moderators — to take away harmful posts.
The corporate additionally stated it refers customers who seek for suicide-related movies to psychological well being providers.
Earlier than killing herself, Marie Le Tiec made a number of movies to elucidate her choice, citing varied difficulties in her life, and quoted a music by the Louisiana-based emo rap group Suicideboys, who’re standard on TikTok.
Her mom additionally claims that her daughter was repeatedly bullied and harassed at college and on-line.
Along with the lawsuit, the 51-year-old mom and her husband have filed a criticism in opposition to 5 of Marie’s classmates and her earlier highschool.
Above all, Mistre blames TikTok, saying that placing the app “within the palms of an empathetic and delicate teenager who doesn’t know what’s actual from what just isn’t is sort of a ticking bomb.”
Scientists haven’t established a transparent hyperlink between social media and psychological well being issues or psychological hurt, stated Grégoire Borst, a professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at Paris-Cité College.
“It’s very tough to indicate clear trigger and impact on this space,” Borst stated, citing a number one peer-reviewed examine that discovered solely 0.4% of the variations in youngsters’ well-being may very well be attributed to social media use.
Moreover, Borst identified that no present research recommend TikTok is any extra dangerous than rival apps equivalent to Snapchat, X, Fb or Instagram.
Whereas most teenagers use social media with out vital hurt, the actual dangers, Borst stated, lie with these already dealing with challenges equivalent to bullying or household instability.
“When youngsters already really feel dangerous about themselves and spend time uncovered to distorted photographs or dangerous social comparisons,” it may possibly worsen their psychological state, Borst stated.
Lawyer Laure Boutron-Marmion, who represents the seven households suing TikTok, stated their case relies on “intensive proof.” The corporate “can not disguise behind the declare that it’s not their accountability as a result of they don’t create the content material,” Boutron-Marmion stated.
The lawsuit alleges that TikTok’s algorithm is designed to entice weak customers in cycles of despair for revenue and seeks reparations for the households.
“Their technique is insidious,” Mistre stated. “They hook youngsters into depressive content material to maintain them on the platform, turning them into profitable re-engagement merchandise.”
Boutron-Marmion famous that TikTok’s Chinese language model, Douyin, options a lot stricter content material controls for younger customers. It features a “youth mode” obligatory for customers underneath 14 that restricts display time to 40 minutes a day and presents solely authorized content material.
“It proves they will reasonable content material once they select to,” Boutron-Marmion stated. “The absence of those safeguards right here is telling.”
A report titled “Youngsters and Screens,” commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron in April and to which Borst contributed, concluded that sure algorithmic options needs to be thought-about addictive and banned from any app in France.
The report additionally known as for limiting social media entry for minors underneath 15 in France.
Neither measure has been adopted.
TikTok, which confronted being shut down within the US till President Donald Trump suspended a ban on it, has additionally come underneath scrutiny globally.
The US has seen related authorized efforts by mother and father. One lawsuit in Los Angeles County accuses Meta and its platforms Instagram and Fb, in addition to Snapchat and TikTok, of designing faulty merchandise that trigger critical accidents.
The lawsuit lists three teenagers who died by suicide.
In one other criticism, two tribal nations accuse main social media firms, together with YouTube proprietor Alphabet, of contributing to excessive charges of suicide amongst Native youths.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to oldsters who had misplaced youngsters whereas testifying final 12 months within the US Senate.
In December, Australia enacted a groundbreaking legislation banning social media accounts for kids underneath 16.
In France, Boutron-Marmion expects TikTok Restricted Applied sciences, the European Union subsidiary for ByteDance — the Chinese language firm that owns TikTok — to reply the allegations within the first quarter of 2025. Authorities will later resolve whether or not and when a trial would happen.
When contacted by The Related Press, TikTok stated it had not been notified concerning the French lawsuit, which was filed in November. It might take months for the French justice system to course of the criticism and for authorities in Eire — dwelling to TikTok’s European headquarters — to formally notify the corporate, Boutron-Marmion stated.
As a substitute, a Tiktok spokesperson highlighted firm tips that prohibit content material selling suicide or self-harm.
Critics argue that TikTok’s claims of sturdy moderation fall brief.
Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the Heart for Countering Digital Hate, dismissed TikTok’s assertion that over 98.8% of dangerous movies had been flagged and eliminated between April and June.
When requested concerning the blind spots of their moderation efforts, social media platforms declare that customers are in a position to bypass detection by utilizing ambiguous language or allusions that algorithms wrestle to flag, Ahmed stated.
The time period “algospeak” has been coined to explain methods equivalent to utilizing zebra or armadillo emojis to speak about slicing your self, or the Swiss flag emoji as an allusion to suicide.
Such code phrases “aren’t notably refined,” Ahmed stated. “The one cause TikTok can’t discover them when impartial researchers, journalists and others can is as a result of they’re not wanting exhausting sufficient,” Ahmed stated.
Ahmed’s group performed a examine in 2022 simulating the expertise of a 13-year-old lady on TikTok.
“Inside 2.5 minutes, the accounts have been served self-harm content material,” Ahmed stated. “By eight minutes, they noticed consuming dysfunction content material. On common, each 39 seconds, the algorithm pushed dangerous materials.”
The algorithm “is aware of that consuming dysfunction and self-harm content material is very addictive” for younger women.
For Mistre, the struggle is deeply private. Sitting in her daughter’s room, the place she has stored the decor untouched for the final three years, she stated mother and father should know concerning the risks of social media.
Had she recognized concerning the content material being despatched to her daughter, she by no means would have allowed her on TikTok, she stated. Her voice breaks as she describes Marie as a “sunny, humorous” teenager who dreamed of turning into a lawyer.
“In reminiscence of Marie, I’ll struggle so long as I’ve the power,” she stated. “Dad and mom must know the reality. We should confront these platforms and demand accountability.”
If you’re battling suicidal ideas or are experiencing a psychological well being disaster and stay in New York Metropolis, you’ll be able to name 1-888-NYC-WELL without cost and confidential disaster counseling. When you stay exterior the 5 boroughs, you’ll be able to dial the 24/7 Nationwide Suicide Prevention hotline at 988 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.