LLMHigh
TikTok’s "For You" Allegedly Pushed Fatal “Blackout” Challenge Videos to Two Young Girls
- Occurred
- Feb 26, 2021
- Published
- Dec 15, 2022
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
TikTok’s recommendation algorithm was alleged in a lawsuit to have intentionally and repeatedly pushed videos of the “blackout” challenge onto children’s feeds, incentivizing their participation which ultimately resulted in the death of two young girls.
Developers
- TikTok
Deployers
- TikTok
Harmed parties
- Lalani Erika Renee Walton
- Arriani Jaileen Arroyo
- Lalani Erika Renee Walton's family
- Arriani Jaileen Arroyo's family
- TikTok young users
- TikTok users
Classification
Category confidence: 70%
Severity confidence: 90%
Rationale: Algorithmic recommendation system failure leading to fatalities, fitting LLM/tech category with high severity due to deaths.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8