Inset: Jaedon Bovell (TikTok). Background: Michelle Ortiz speaking to reporters outside Delaware Superior Court where her wrongful death lawsuit is being weighed by a judge (WPVI/YouTube).
A Delaware mother says her 17-year-old son died trying to "master" a viral and deadly TikTok trend known as the "Blackout Challenge," which allegedly "encourages users to choke themselves with belts, purse strings, or anything similar until passing out." Now, her son is one of at least five juveniles named in a wrongful death lawsuit that's being weighed by a Delaware judge who has been asked to dismiss it.
"He had no idea it was going to kill him," Michelle Ortiz, mother of Jaedon Bovell, told the Delaware News Journal last week during an interview outside the Wilmington courtroom where the wrongful death suit is being weighed.
Jaedon died in 2020 from self-asphyxiation after choking himself with a jiu-jitsu belt that was tied to his bunk bed. His mom told the Journal that he was "mentally sucked" into doing the "Blackout Challenge" after becoming more and more infatuated with social media, where he amassed more than 25,000 followers and became "TikTok famous," according to Ortiz.
Videos on Jaedon's account, which is still up, show him dancing and doing various trends. His last post was made on June 1, 2020, just one day before he died. It shows him dancing and singing.
"Does he look like he would have killed himself?" Ortiz told the Journal, in reference to his last post and attempt to "master the Blackout Challenge," per the Journal. "He loved himself. He knew he was fine. He was beautiful and smart and funny as hell."
Ortiz joins five other families, all from the United Kingdom, who are suing two TikTok entities and the app's parent company, ByteDance, in a lawsuit filed in Delaware Superior Court. One of the entities is incorporated in Delaware, per the Journal. Their legal complaint was first filed last year without Ortiz but has since been amended to add her and Bovell's case, which was heard on Jan. 16 by a judge in Wilmington after TikTok filed a motion to dismiss the suit.
The complaint says ByteDance's "design and distribution decisions, including promotion of this and similar challenges to minor users," as well as its "harmful algorithmic targeting and discrimination" are to blame for the deaths. It lists juveniles who are not named in the lawsuit as some of the "multiple" children who have been affected by the "Blackout Challenge."
A 12-year-old boy in Colorado, for instance, is said to have died after attempting the challenge "by choking himself with a shoelace," according to the complaint.
"I'm not doing this for any other reason than I don't want another mother to feel this way," Ortiz told the Journal on why she joined the lawsuit.
Liam Walsh, who lost his daughter Maia, said, "Nothing was wrong until they downloaded TikTok on their phones with our permission because TikTok made out that it was safe for a 13-year-old to be on there."
Matthew Bergman, an attorney representing the families, blasts TikTok as being a "For You page that deluges young people, young kids with dangerous material," according to local ABC affiliate WPVI. "In this case, dangerous choking challenges," he told the outlet. "Not material kids want to see, material they can't turn away from."
Lawyers for TikTok argue that the case should be dismissed under the First Amendment and have stated in court that the current law, dubbed the Communications Decency Act, bars internet companies from liability for content put out by third parties.
"Our deepest sympathies remain with these families," a TikTok spokesperson told WPVI on the pending litigation. "We strictly prohibit content that promotes or encourages dangerous behavior. Using robust detection systems and dedicated enforcement teams to proactively identify and remove this content, we remove 99% that's found to break these rules before it is reported to us."
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