A mother has revealed how her teenage son died after passing out in front of his friends online, allegedly doing the same TikTok challenge blamed on the death of 12-year-old Archie Battersby.
Leon Brown was found unconscious in his bedroom at this home in Cumberno, Lanarkshire on 25 August. His mother, Lauryn Keating, told the Daily Record that the 14-year-old’s friends said they engaged in a viral “blackout call” during a Facetime call.
According to Keating, the teenagers “probably thought” doing this task would be “funny”. She added, “One of the kids he Facetimed told me what he did. She said they thought they would wake up. But Leon did not return. Everything went terribly wrong.”
What is a “blackout challenge”?
Also known as the “swoon game” or “choke game,” the challenge “involves teens depriving themselves of oxygen to achieve a high that causes them to pass out and faint,” according to the Irish Examiner.
Dr Nick Flynn, a general practitioner in Cork, told the newspaper the risks associated with the problem included fainting, seizures and potentially fatal brain damage. He explained that the lack of oxygen to the brain as a result of such asphyxia “is like when someone drowns, suffocates or their heart stops.”
“If you have low brain oxygen levels for more than three minutes, you can get brain damage, and if you have low brain oxygen levels for more than five minutes, it can lead to death,” Flynn said.
Although such challenges have existed for many years, the problem of power outage has recently resurfaced and has been linked to a series of tragedies. In July, two parents sued the U.S. social network TikTok, “claiming that its ‘dangerous’ algorithms are to blame for their children’s deaths,” reports The Guardian.
The girls’ parents, eight-year-old Lalani Erika Walton of Texas and nine-year-old Arriane Jaileen Arroyo of Wisconsin, were represented by the Social Media Victims Law Center, a legal resource for families of children affected by social media addiction and abuse.
The lawsuit alleged that “the timeless TikTok algorithm was designed to promote TikTok Challenges to younger users in order to increase their engagement and maximize TikTok’s profits.”
The platform is also being sued by the family of a ten-year-old girl, Nyla Anderson, whose death was linked to a power outage challenge. After a wrongful death lawsuit was filed in May, a TikTok spokesperson told The Washington Post that the “alarming ‘call’ that people seem to hear about from sources other than TikTok long before our platform and has never been a trend TikTok.
“We remain vigilant in our commitment to user safety and will remove relevant content immediately if found,” the spokesperson said, adding that the company has made it impossible to search for videos using the #BlackoutChallenge hashtag.
But British schoolboy Archie Battersby’s mother told The Mirror last month that “social media companies are not doing enough to stop harmful content on the Internet.”
“It’s out there and people are preparing our children for these tasks, it’s disgusting,” said Holly Dance, who found Archie unconscious in April with a ligature around his neck at their home in Southend, Essex. He was in a coma for four months before his life support was taken off August 6 after his parents lost a legal battle to keep him alive.
His mother told the newspaper that she believed the deaths of more than 80 other children were related to the power outage issue. “People – often adults, not children – who show these problems are sick,” Dance said, adding, “Police and government must work together to stop this.”
What did the politicians say?
The Conservative Party has come under fire for delaying the long-awaited Internet Safety Bill, which is meant to protect Internet users from harmful content.
A spokesman for the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports told The Mirror that the bill would “force tech firms to protect kids from dangerous viral stunts.” The spokesperson added that “firms that go bankrupt will face huge fines or have their websites blocked.”
Liberal Democrat digital spokesman Jamie Stone criticized the delays in passing the proposed legislation. “It’s been more than four years since Conservative ministers promised new laws to tackle online harm, but we’re still waiting,” Stone said. “We need clear, tough laws.”
What else did TikTok say?
In response to Leon Brown’s death last week, a TikTok spokesperson said: “We extend our deepest condolences to the family on their tragic loss. The safety of our community is our priority and we take any claims of hazardous testing very seriously. This kind of content is prohibited on our platform and will be removed if found.”
Anyone who searches for #BlackOutChallenge or other similar terms will now be shown a message that directs them to the company’s security center.
