Tiktok

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Archie battersbea- tiktok should be paying for his lifetime medical support and then compensation on top

Absolutely horrific and these companies don't care and get away Scott free

They need to be brought to justice . His family should sue

Don't let your children or teens use these platforms

social media had a massive role to play, yet once again these platforms escape any scrutiny

Do you think his parents should face prosecution?

yet once again these platforms escape any scrutiny

OP, how do you think these apps should keep children safe and out of harms way?

If he did what he did as a result of something he saw on TikTok, his parents have failed him by not actively monitoring his access to social media.

And they’re failing him now by not accepting that the poor child has no hope of recovery.

TikTok is a horrifically toxic app, it's not responsible for what happened though.

At this stage there is no evidence that this was part of an online challenge.

Tik Tok was originally named but hasn't been named since as they threatened legal action if they were subsequently named again.

If you view Archie's Tik Tok account it makes very uncomfortable watching. It's very dark.

When Archie does pass away there will be an investigation and an inquest. The truth will come out then.

TikTok does remove accounts of kids who are underage, though, if they find out about them. A player on the local baseball team to me was at an out of town game, and a little girl in the stands asked him to make a dance video with her for TikTok. In an interview he said he double-checked with her parents that it was ok, and they said yes, so he did it. It was all over the news and the video went viral, and TikTok pulled it the next day and shut down the girl's account because she was only 11.

So it's not as though they're unwilling to police it, it's just they have to know about it. My daughter is 11, and she really wants a TikTok, but she's too young. I have it on my phone, and she's allowed to watch on there with my supervision. But that's it.

There's no evidence he was doing a challenge and he was underage for using the platform.

You are spouting complete rubbish. There was no Tik Tok challenge and ITV had to apologise after Philip Scholfield repeated the rumour as Tik Tok threatened to sue.

Archie sadly will have no more medical care to pay for. His life support is being removed tomorrow xx

Also. Your title is disingenuous as it doesn't mention Archie Battersbee until you open the thread.

Schools need to educate children more about staying safe online. Teachers and safeguarding staff need to know what they’re dealing with. They can’t fob parents off with “what ever happens outside school hours isn’t our problem”. All school staff have a duty of care.

This is very unfair. E-safety is a massive part of computing education. What you unfortunately find is that children know all the right things to say, but what they do in practice is very different. They know that sites like tik-tok, Facebook etc have age restrictions but parents let them use it anyway. They know they shouldn’t communicate with people they don’t know online - but they do it anyway, parents aren’t supervising. They know how damaging it can be to say hurtful things to others online. We can give them all the info and they can understand all the info - but it’s the parents that are responsible at the end of the day and need to implement it. 99% of the time when we have e-safety related safeguarding issues, from sending inappropriate pictures, giving info to strangers, online bullying, parents are called in and the response we get is ‘we had no idea, we don’t know what they’re doing on their phones/iPads/ PlayStations…’ and I’m not talking about teenagers - I work in a junior school .

There's no way to prove whether tiktok influenced his actions or not, and 'influence' itself cannot be policed. It could've been anyone telling him to do the challenge, if that's what it really was. It hasn't been proven to even be the tiktok 'trend', it could've been suicide.

He can't be kept in this state forever, but perhaps some compensation would make it easier for his family to say goodbye. Money isn't everything, and sometimes there's no one to blame

Also, the minimum age to have a tiktok account is 13, as Archie was 12, it was his parents responsibility to keep him off it.

Exactly!! You see it often on here too, posters defending their kids using SM. It's absolutely no one else's responsibility except parents. They are the ones supplying the phones and access to online aren't they??

When it was initially reported, Tik Tok was not mentioned.

It may seem more comforting that this tragedy came from a social media 'trend' of which we haven't heard of any other deaths.

Be more considerate OP and actually think for one second of what really might have happened.

Is this even about online safety? If he really did attempt this blackout challenge thing isn’t the conversation more about self harm? Take away TikTok in this scenario and the challenge could easily still exist IRL. But you’d like to think most children would be sensible enough to walk away. The lesson here ultimately isn’t “be safe online” (albeit still a valuable lesson) but “don’t do stupid shit”.

(Sorry that feels very tasteless in the current circumstances but really not TikToks fault!)

There were some kids in the US die of the same challenge.

I speak as a mother who's son who had been to more funerals at the age of 16 for friends, than I had attended in a 45 year lifetime.

I used to drive him and friends to the crematorium. Heartbreaking.

People may well have died in America.
This type of craze usually runs between close friends egging on - not watching a random stranger and thinking I'll have a go at that.

I just think don't use that poor boy's name to suit an agenda of taking down Tik tok.

2 hangings and a plastic bag. Fucking horrific. Pre Tik tok.

I’d be interested in advice on TikTok. My DS is 11. He doesn’t have an account, but can still access videos on TikTok when his friends send him links. I have set up parental controls, but I can’t seem to prevent him accessing TikTok content. So far it all seems to be harmless but realistically I am not going to be able to constantly supervise. What do others do?

PAPYRUS

Final word.

This thread will probably be removed (and rightly so). But as others have pointed out, there is absolutely zero evidence that TikTok usage played any part in this whatsoever. Sadly, this little boy took his own life and the family is unwilling or unable to accept or acknowledge that. The whole situation is incredibly tragic, but even if there was a TikTok challenge involved (and again there is absolutely no evidence there was), he was underage to use it.

But you’d like to think most children would be sensible enough to walk away. The lesson here ultimately isn’t “be safe online” (albeit still a valuable lesson) but “don’t do stupid shit”.

I think I agree to an extent, although it sounds harsh. This challenge isn’t new, there was a version of this when I was at school 20 years ago. I didn’t do it because it looked like a completely nuts and scary thing to do. We were very aware that it could cause brain damage! But some had the attitude of ‘it won’t happen to me’ - and indeed it didn’t, I don’t know anyone that died or got hurt - or were trying to impress others, and some just couldn’t resist curiosity and temptation because others were adamant it felt amazing.
It’s about the dangers of peer pressure I guess to an extent. Like kids walking around on train tracks. Or jumping off bridges into shallow water. It’s why kids start taking drugs or start smoking. Kids do stupid shit to impress their friends or because they are following the crowd and always have. Social media is an extension of this but it’s not a ‘cause’.

What medical support? He's having NHS treatment and he isn't stable enough to leave hospital because he's already died
And there's absolutely no evidence it was a challenge. If you're doing an online challenge then you usually record it