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."
Legal campaign
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.
The seven families form part of a collective, Algos Victima, founded by Boutron-Marmion earlier this year to pursue legal action in France against social media companies for allegedly failing to protect young users.
The lawyer has already filed a case against TikTok for "incitement to suicide" over the death of a 15-year-old girl who took her life in 2021 after posting on the platform about her struggles as a victim of bullying.
Her parents, who have also joined the collective suit, say her videos prompted the algorithm to show her content about self-harm that, they believe, contributed to her suicide.
France admits 'failures' in prevention of teen bullying, suicides
France has so far done little to study or regulate the potentially harmful effects of social media, Boutron-Marmion told legal news site Actu Juridique in April.
She is calling for companies to moderate content liable to influence vulnerable users, for example by systematically hiding content about suicide.
But first and foremost she hopes that suing social media giants will place more scrutiny on their practices. Having the opportunity to debate their lawyers in public will be a victory in itself, she said, "since getting a hearing with a social networking platform is almost impossible these days".
Rabbit-hole effect
The European Union opened an investigation in February into whether TikTok does enough to protect minors.
The EU said it was concerned that the app's design could lead users to become addicted to it or be drawn into a spiral of potentially harmful content.
Amnesty International has documented what it calls the rabbit-hole effect of TikTok's algorithm, with research finding that users who show an interest in videos related to mental health are quickly recommended content about depressive thinking, self-harm and suicide in a bid to hold their attention.
France struggles to decide what place screens should have in schools
TikTok's guidelines ban showing or promoting suicide, self-harm or disordered eating, while the app says that content related to weight loss, drug and alcohol use, sex, gambling and other potentially risky behaviour is restricted to users over 18.
In its latest update on the steps it takes to moderate content within the EU, the company says it removed more than 22 million pieces of content and banned over 5 million accounts for breaking its rules between January and June this year.
Most of the offending videos are removed by automated moderation systems, it said, while some 6,000 people are involved in moderating content in the EU's various languages.
