“The hype has done its work.” On Monday, seven French families belonging to the Algos Victima collective filed a complaint against TikTok. TikTokhas announced France Info. She accuses the platform of promoting content about suicide and self-mutilation to their daughters. With dramatic consequences: two teenage girls have committed suicidefour others attempted, and one developedanorexia.
For Laure Boutron-Marmion, the collective’s lawyer, TikTok’s responsibility is beyond doubt. “From the moment that social networks operate with filter bubbles, which lock users into their centers of interest, we can imagine the devastating effects when it comes to suicidal ideas,” she denounces to 20 Minutes. Families report that their children, after viewing videos related to self-image, diet, or sometimes just sad songs, have been recommended violent content, or videos detailing the drugs to use to commit suicide, or how to scarify oneself with a pencil sharpener.
The Algos Victima collective believes that the Chinese platform is at fault for not sufficiently regulating such dangerous content. “The application knows that its content is addictive, but it doesn’t moderate it,” accuses Laure Boutron-Marmion. TikTok publishes moderation reports on its website, in compliance with the European Digital Service Act. In its latest report, the company states that between January and June, in the 27 EU member states, it removed over 22 million items of content for infringement of EU rules and advertising policies. Contacted, the social network did not respond to our requests.
The application increasingly targeted by legal proceedings
This isn’t the first time TikTok’s influence has come under fire. At the beginning of October, prosecutors from 14 US states took the platform to court, accusing it of collecting personal data without their authorization and harming their mental health. In 2022, the British courts ruled in favor of a similar complaint from the parents of a teenager who committed suicide. The court found that “the negative effects of online content” put forward by Instagram and Pinterest in the girl’s feed had “contributed” to her act.
At EuropeTikTok has been the subject of a number of proceedings, including a formal investigation into alleged breaches in the protection of minors in February. Families have a legal expectation that the French judge will hear them and obtain compensation,” explains Laure Boutron-Marmion. But we are aware that this will help to shed light on the other proceedings against the application.” The parents of Marie, one of the girls who took her own life, had already taken TikTok to court in September 2023. “This new action doesn’t mean that we’re not waiting for investigations to be opened in previous cases,” stresses the lawyer. She estimates that the long procedure could last eighteen months.