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A British mother suing TikTok following the tragic loss of her son has described attending the initial court hearing in the United States as “deeply painful.” Ellen Roome, aged 49 and from Gloucestershire, has been advocating for change since her 14-year-old son, Julian “Jools” Sweeney, passed away at their home in Cheltenham in 2022. Recently, she traveled to Delaware alongside other grieving parents as part of a lawsuit alleging that their children died while attempting a dangerous online activity referred to as the “blackout challenge.”
The legal action was initiated by the Social Media Victims Law Centre and filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware. It involves claims that Jools, together with Isaac Kenevan, 13, Archie Battersbee, 12, Noah Gibson, 11, and Maia Walsh, 13, died as a result of participating in the challenge, which was encouraged through TikTok. The lawsuit argues that these deaths were foreseeable outcomes driven by ByteDance’s design of the platform to exploit addiction, claiming the company’s programming intentionally pushed children to maximize their engagement with the app at any cost. TikTok has responded by emphasizing that content promoting or encouraging dangerous activities is strictly prohibited on its platform.
Roome has committed herself fully to the campaign, even selling her financial business of 18 years to focus on advocating for what she calls “Jools’ Law.” This proposed legislation would give parents the right to access data belonging to their deceased children without needing a court order. Beyond this, she is pushing for broader reforms aimed at improving online safety for children. After the inquest into her son’s death, a coroner returned a narrative verdict and dismissed suicide as a cause. Roome believes Jools’ fatal incident stemmed from an online challenge gone wrong, and since then, she has been attempting to obtain data from TikTok and its parent company ByteDance that she hopes will shed light on what happened.
In a statement shared on social media following the hearing, Roome reflected on the difficult experience, saying: “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.” Meanwhile, TikTok continues to seek dismissal of the case. They argue that because the plaintiffs are UK residents suing US entities that do not operate TikTok’s services within the UK, US law protects the company from liability for third-party content. The company also expressed its “deepest sympathies” to the families involved and reiterated that it complies with the UK’s strict data protection regulations. TikTok reportedly blocked access to the blackout challenge on its platform as far back as 2020
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