TikTok must face lawsuit over 10-year-old girl's death, US court rules

 A U.S. appeals court has revived a lawsuit against TikTok by the mother of a 10-year-old girl who died after taking part in a viral "blackout challenge" in which users of the social media platform were dared to choke themselves until they passed out. While a federal law typically shields internet companies from lawsuits over content posted by users, the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled the law does not bar Nylah Anderson's mother from pursuing claims that TikTok's algorithm recommended the challenge to her daughter. U.S. Circuit Judge Patty Shwartz, writing for the three-judge panel, said that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 only immunizes information provided by third parties and not recommendations TikTok itself made via an algorithm underlying its platform. "TikTok makes choices about the content recommended and promoted to specific users, and by doing so, is engaged in its own first-party speech," the judge wrote. Tuesday's ruling reversed a lower-court judge's decision dismissing on Section 230 grounds the case filed by Tawainna Anderson against TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance. She sued after her daughter Nylah died in 2021 after attempting the blackout challenge using a purse strap hung in her mother's closet.