In news– TikTok was recently sued in the United States by the parents of two young girls who died after taking part in a viral ‘blackout challenge’ in 2021.
What is Tiktok ‘blackout Challenge’?
- It is a challenge in which people are encouraged to choke themselves with belts until they become unconscious due to the lack of oxygen.
- The wrongful death lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance says the children “died of self-strangulation while participating in TikTok’s ‘Blackout Challenge’.
- The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, lists a number of complaints, including that the app’s algorithm promotes harmful content, allows underage users, and fails to warn users or their guardians of TikTok’s addictive nature.
- The lawsuit referred to TikTok’s “For You” page, which allegedly features a personalised stream of videos curated by the algorithm based on the user’s demographics, ‘likes’, and prior activity.
Dangerous Internet games-
Over the years, several potentially dangerous challenges have spread across the Internet, like the ‘Tide Pod Challenge’ in which people eat small packets of laundry detergent on camera, leading to dozens of cases of poisoning, and the ‘Fire Challenge’, in which people share videos of applying flammable liquid to the skin and setting it on fire.
Ban on Tik Tok in India-
- TikTok, which was at one time popular in India, has been banned in the country with links to China since 2020.
- Other than TikTok, the government of India banned more than 50 Chinese mobile applications, including top social media platforms such as Helo and WeChat, to counter the threat posed by these applications to the country’s sovereignty and security.
- The ban was imposed under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000 read with relevant provisions of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access of Information by Public) Rules 2009.
Source: The Indian Express
