Grieving mum suing TikTok says hearing was ‘painful’

A British mother suing TikTok after the death of her son has described the first hearing in the United States as “deeply painful”.

Ellen Roome, 49, from Gloucestershire, has been campaigning since her 14-year-old son Julian “Jools” Sweeney died at home in Cheltenham in 2022.

She travelled to Delaware with a group of parents this week as part of a lawsuit which claims their children all died while attempting a “blackout challenge”.

A TikTok spokesperson said: “We strictly prohibit content that promotes or encourages dangerous behaviour.”

In a statement posted to social media on Friday, Roome said: “We now have to wait for the judge to decide whether the case is dismissed or whether we are allowed to proceed to the discovery stage.

“For the court, this is about motions and procedures. For us, it is about our children. Our dead children.”

The case, filed by the Social Media Victims Law Centre in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware, alleges Jools, Isaac Kenevan, 13, Archie Battersbee, 12, Noah Gibson, 11 and Maia Walsh, 13, died while attempting an online challenge.

It claims the children’s deaths were “the foreseeable result of ByteDance’s engineered addiction-by-design and programming decisions”, which were “aimed at pushing children into maximising their engagement with TikTok by any means necessary”.

Roome sold the financial business she had run for 18 years to campaign for Jools’ Law, a right for parents to access their deceased child’s data without a court order.

She is also pushing for wider changes to social media to improve the safety of children online.

Following Jools’ death, a coroner returned a narrative verdict at his inquest and ruled out suicide. Roome believes her son died after an online challenge went wrong.

Since her son’s death, Roome has been trying to obtain data from TikTok and ByteDance which she believes could provide an explanation as to what happened.

In her online update, Roome added: “Listening to law argue abstract points while the reality of our loss sat silently behind every word was deeply painful. This is our lived experience, our grief and our determination to find the truth and protect other children.

“Whatever the outcome, we showed up. We spoke for our children. And we will keep going.”

TikTok has applied to dismiss the case, stating UK residents are suing US entities which do not operate the social media firm’s services in the UK and established US law bars liability for third-party content on the platform.

A spokesperson for TikTok said their “deepest sympathies” remain with the families and “content that promotes or encourages dangerous behaviour” is strictly prohibited on the platform.

“As a company, we comply with the UK’s strict data protection laws,” they added.

It is understood the online challenge which the parents say is responsible for their children’s deaths has been blocked on TikTok since 2020.