Tiktok’s new challenge luring young kids to their deaths

Blackout challenge, also called the ‘pass-out challenge’, encourages kids to hold their breath until they fall unconscious, sometimes with the help of objects

The 5-year-old boy’s panicked cries echoed down the hallway of the Arroyos’ three-bedroom clapboard house in Milwaukee. It was February 2021, and he’d been playing with his 9-year-old sister, Arriani, before bedtime. Their mother was at a Bible study class, and their father was in his basement workshop. The boy watched Arriani climb atop a toy chest, wrap a metal dog leash around her neck and hook the buckle to the wardrobe door. Now she was hanging 2 feet from the ground, kicking and desperately scratching at her neck.

The viral ‘blackout’ challenge circulating on Tiktok is still claiming the lives of children too young to be on the app, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, which found that 15 children age 12 or younger have been killed in the past 18 months, along with at least five kids aged 13 and 14. The challenge, also tagged as the “pass out challenge,” encourages kids to hold their breath until they fall unconscious, sometimes with the help of various objects like purse straps or shoelaces. It claimed at least 80 lives back in 2008 when it first appeared, but reemerged with shocking popularity in 2021 on the video app. Lawsuits attempting to place blame on Tiktok and its Chinese parent company Bytedance have failed, with courts deeming the company has immunity under the Communications Decency Act, which shields publishers of other people’s work.

Arriani’s passing went unreported by the media, and Tiktok took months to find out. But the business knew that young people were participating in the blackout challenge. They weren’t old enough to create profiles on its app and were dying—the trust and safety team at Tiktok. The group aims to safeguard users and uphold the company’s reputation, had started looking into a related event in Palermo, Sicily, in the weeks prior.

The Tiktok team members claim that senior executives were relieved by that. A crisis management plan was created to separate Tiktok from the tragedy and portray it as a problem facing the entire business.