Within the second when her world shattered three years in the past, Stephanie Mistre discovered her 15-year-old daughter, Marie, lifeless within the bed room the place she died by suicide.
“I went from gentle to darkness in a fraction of a second,” Mistre stated, describing the day in September 2021 that marked the beginning of her battle in opposition to TikTok, the Chinese language-owned video app she blames for pushing her daughter towards despair.
(AP editor’s word — This story consists of dialogue of suicide. When you or somebody you already know wants assist, the nationwide suicide and disaster lifeline within the U.S. is out there by calling or texting 988. There’s additionally an internet chat at 988lifeline.org. Helplines exterior the U.S. will be discovered at www.iasp.info/suicidalthoughts.)
Delving into her daughter’s cellphone after her demise, Mistre found movies selling suicide strategies, tutorials and feedback encouraging customers to transcend “mere suicide makes an attempt.” She stated TikTok’s algorithm had repeatedly pushed such content material to her daughter.
“It was brainwashing,” stated Mistre, who lives in Cassis, close to Marseille, within the south of France. “They normalized melancholy and self-harm, turning it right into a twisted sense of belonging.”
Now Mistre and 6 different households are suing TikTok France, accusing the platform of failing to average dangerous content material and exposing kids to life-threatening materials. Out of the seven households, two skilled the loss of a kid.
Requested concerning the lawsuit, TikTok stated its tips forbid any promotion of suicide and that it employs 40,000 belief and security professionals worldwide — a whole lot of that are French-speaking moderators — to take away harmful posts. The corporate additionally stated it refers customers who seek for suicide-related movies to psychological well being companies.
Earlier than killing herself, Marie Le Tiec made a number of movies to elucidate her choice, citing varied difficulties in her life, and quoted a track by the Louisiana-based emo rap group Suicideboys, who’re well-liked on TikTok.
Her mom additionally claims that her daughter was repeatedly bullied and harassed in school and on-line. Along with the lawsuit, the 51-year-old mom and her husband have filed a grievance in opposition to 5 of Marie’s classmates and her earlier highschool.
Above all, Mistre blames TikTok, saying that placing the app “within the palms of an empathetic and delicate teenager who doesn’t know what’s actual from what isn’t is sort of a ticking bomb.”
Scientists haven’t established a transparent hyperlink between social media and psychological well being issues or psychological hurt, stated Grégoire Borst, a professor of psychology and cognitive neuroscience at Paris-Cité College.
“It’s very tough to indicate clear trigger and impact on this space,” Borst stated, citing a number one peer-reviewed research that discovered solely 0.4% of the variations in youngsters’ well-being might be attributed to social media use.
Moreover, Borst identified that no present research counsel TikTok is any extra dangerous than rival apps resembling Snapchat, X, Fb or Instagram.
Whereas most teenagers use social media with out important hurt, the true dangers, Borst stated, lie with these already going through challenges resembling bullying or household instability.
“When youngsters already really feel unhealthy about themselves and spend time uncovered to distorted pictures or dangerous social comparisons,” it may well worsen their psychological state, Borst stated.
Lawyer Laure Boutron-Marmion, who represents the seven households suing TikTok, stated their case relies on “in depth proof.” The corporate “can now not conceal behind the declare that it’s not their duty as a result of they don’t create the content material,” Boutron-Marmion stated.
The lawsuit alleges that TikTok’s algorithm is designed to entice susceptible customers in cycles of despair for revenue and seeks reparations for the households.
“Their technique is insidious,” Mistre stated. “They hook kids into depressive content material to maintain them on the platform, turning them into profitable re-engagement merchandise.”
Boutron-Marmion famous that TikTok’s Chinese language model, Douyin, options a lot stricter content material controls for younger customers. It features a “youth mode” necessary for customers below 14 that restricts display screen time to 40 minutes a day and provides solely accepted content material.
“It proves they’ll average content material once they select to,” Boutron-Marmion stated. “The absence of those safeguards right here is telling.”
A report titled “Kids and Screens,” commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron in April and to which Borst contributed, concluded that sure algorithmic options needs to be thought-about addictive and banned from any app in France. The report additionally known as for proscribing social media entry for minors below 15 in France. Neither measure has been adopted.
TikTok, which confronted being shut down within the U.S. till President Donald Trump suspended a ban on it, has additionally come under scrutiny globally.
The U.S. has seen comparable authorized efforts by mother and father. One lawsuit in Los Angeles County accuses Meta and its platforms Instagram and Fb, in addition to Snapchat and TikTok, of designing faulty merchandise that trigger critical accidents. The lawsuit lists three teenagers who died by suicide. In one other grievance, two tribal nations accuse main social media corporations, together with YouTube proprietor Alphabet, of contributing to excessive charges of suicide amongst Native youths.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized to folks who had misplaced kids whereas testifying final yr within the U.S. Senate.
In December, Australia enacted a groundbreaking law banning social media accounts for youngsters below 16.
In France, Boutron-Marmion expects TikTok Restricted Applied sciences, the European Union subsidiary for ByteDance — the Chinese language firm that owns TikTok — to reply the allegations within the first quarter of 2025. Authorities will later determine whether or not and when a trial would happen.
When contacted by The Related Press, TikTok stated it had not been notified concerning the French lawsuit, which was filed in November. It may take months for the French justice system to course of the grievance and for authorities in Eire — dwelling to TikTok’s European headquarters — to formally notify the corporate, Boutron-Marmion stated.
As a substitute, a Tiktok spokesperson highlighted firm tips that prohibit content material selling suicide or self-harm.
Critics argue that TikTok’s claims of sturdy moderation fall quick.
Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the Middle for Countering Digital Hate, dismissed TikTok’s assertion that over 98.8% of dangerous movies had been flagged and eliminated between April and June.
When requested concerning the blind spots of their moderation efforts, social media platforms declare that customers are capable of bypass detection through the use of ambiguous language or allusions that algorithms battle to flag, Ahmed stated.
The time period “algospeak” has been coined to explain methods resembling utilizing zebra or armadillo emojis to speak about slicing your self, or the Swiss flag emoji as an allusion to suicide.
Such code phrases “aren’t notably subtle,” Ahmed stated. “The one motive TikTok can’t discover them when impartial researchers, journalists and others can is as a result of they’re not trying exhausting sufficient,” Ahmed stated.
Ahmed’s group carried out a research in 2022 simulating the expertise of a 13-year-old woman on TikTok.
“Inside 2.5 minutes, the accounts have been served self-harm content material,” Ahmed stated. “By eight minutes, they noticed consuming dysfunction content material. On common, each 39 seconds, the algorithm pushed dangerous materials.”
The algorithm “is aware of that consuming dysfunction and self-harm content material is very addictive” for younger ladies.
For Mistre, the battle is deeply private. Sitting in her daughter’s room, the place she has saved the decor untouched for the final three years, she stated mother and father should know concerning the risks of social media.
Had she recognized concerning the content material being despatched to her daughter, she by no means would have allowed her on TikTok, she stated. Her voice breaks as she describes Marie as a “sunny, humorous” teenager who dreamed of turning into a lawyer.
“In reminiscence of Marie, I’ll battle so long as I’ve the power,” she stated. “Mother and father must know the reality. We should confront these platforms and demand accountability.”
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Related Press writers Haleluya Hadero and Zen Soo contributed to this story.
{Photograph}: Stephanie Mistre, 51, holds an image of her daughter, Marie Le Tiec, a teen who died by suicide in 2021, on Dec. 10, 2024, in Cassis, southern France. (AP Photograph/Tom Nouvian)
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