• by Wendy Davis , 7 hours ago

Parents who unsuccessfully sued Google and TikTok over "choking videos" and other potentially harmful content are appealing a judge's ruling dismissing the lawsuit.

The families initiated the appeal Monday, but haven't yet filed substantive arguments with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The move comes around one month after U.S. District Court Judge Virginia DeMarchi in San Jose, California, dismissed the case against the platforms.

The dispute dates to 2023, when parents who alleged their children were harmed as a result of content on the platforms, and the Becca Schmill Foundation -- created by the family of 18-year-old Rebecca Mann Schmill who died of a fentanyl overdose after using social media to obtain drugs -- sued both tech companies.

Parents of two children named in the lawsuit specifically alleged that they died after attempting “choking challenges” they had seen online. “Choking challenge” videos depict people strangling themselves until they pass out.

Their complaint alleges that Google and TikTok misrepresent that they actually remove material that violates their content policies. The plaintiffs also claim that the social media companies' platforms are dangerously defective, and that the companies negligently failed to protect users from an “unreasonable risk of harm.”

Among other allegations, the plaintiffs -- who described themselves as “modern-day champions and vigilantes -- said they searched for and reported “choking videos and other harmful videos” to Google's YouTube and TikTok, but that their efforts were “unheeded, ignored, and arbitrarily dismissed” by the platforms.

DeMarchi dismissed the claims with prejudice in December.

She said in the written ruling that claims about the reporting tools actually centered on disagreements about content.

"Plaintiffs allege that the automated reporting tools are defective because they are 'not capable of conducting a review of the harmful content against the defendants’ community guidelines,'" she wrote.

"The alleged 'defect' is not 'content-agnostic,' but instead reflects a disagreement about 'ideas, content, and free expression upon which products liability claims cannot be based,'" DeMarchi wrote, quoting from a separate opinion regarding social media companies.