Overview
- Five British families are suing TikTok and ByteDance in Delaware over the alleged wrongful deaths of their children tied to harmful, algorithmically amplified content.
- The court is hearing TikTok’s motion to dismiss, a decision that could either end the case or open a multi‑year discovery process requiring disclosure of internal data and account histories.
- Plaintiffs say the company has withheld watch and search histories for the deceased children, citing data deletion policies and data protection laws.
- TikTok expresses sympathy, says it bans dangerous content, and reports removing 99% of rule‑breaking material before it is reported.
- The families chose Delaware because ByteDance is incorporated there, while in the UK they back a proposed ‘Jools’ Law’ to automatically preserve a child’s online data after death.