A French mom whose teenage son took his personal life is preventing to carry social media platforms accountable, saying their algorithms pushed suicide-related content material that despatched the 15-year-old right into a “downward spiral”.
Emmanuelle Pouedras instructed AFP her story as France mulls scaling again social media entry for teenagers, together with by means of a doable ban for kids underneath 15 much like the one in Australia.
Clement had solely simply began his second yr of secondary faculty when he took his personal life in Brittany in 2024.
His mom, a 55-year-old shopkeeper, and her husband, Sebastien, at the moment are searching for to reopen the investigation into his loss of life and maintain social media platforms to account.
In September, they filed a grievance towards TikTok and Meta amongst different such corporations on prices together with incitement to suicide.
The overwhelming majority of the movies on his TikTok “For You” web page – the place the platform’s algorithm recommends content material – have been “inciting him to loss of life, telling him he would not matter to anybody”, Clement’s mom instructed AFP at dwelling within the city of Lorient.
The self-harm content material “exacerbated” her son’s misery and despatched him right into a “downward spiral”, she stated.
“TikTok knew he wasn’t doing effectively, TikTok did nothing, and TikTok will not be serving to us discover the reality,” she stated, accusing the platform of failing to behave.
Her son was additionally cyberbullied on the messaging service WhatsApp proper up till the final hours earlier than his loss of life, she instructed AFP.
Pouedras was on Wednesday to satisfy French President Emmanuel Macron within the city of Saint-Malo, additionally in Brittany, the place he was to debate the problem that social media and their algorithms pose to democracy.
In a letter she despatched to the president on Monday, she described her son as “one more sufferer of social media”.
Before Clement died, Pouedras stated she was cautious of the potential hurt posed by unfettered entry to smartphones and required her two kids to maintain theirs out of their bedrooms at night time.
During the investigation into Clement’s loss of life, police didn’t study his telephone however she later discovered messages indicating he had been cyberbullied.
“Have you completed your shitty suicide?” learn one textual content despatched in a bunch chat on the messaging service WhatsApp.
She stated she spent months making an attempt to contact social media platforms, together with Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok, to achieve entry to his information to attempt to perceive what led to his loss of life.
But she obtained solely partial responses, regardless of platforms being required to provide her entry to this information, in line with France’s information safety authority CNIL, she instructed AFP.
The household filed a grievance on September 19, their lawyer Pierre Debuisson accusing the platforms of “deliberate obstruction”. He argued that social media websites have been the scene of a wave of “a number of incitements to suicide, accessible to minors with none protecting filter”.
The regional public prosecutor’s workplace didn’t say what motion it will absorb response to the Pouedras’ grievance.
TikTok instructed AFP it “strictly prohibits content material that depicts or promotes suicide or self-harm” and “removes 98 p.c of violating content material earlier than it’s even reported”.
Searches containing phrases akin to “suicide” are redirected to “a web page with devoted sources”, it added.
Meta, the mum or dad firm of WhatsApp, didn’t instantly reply to AFP’s request for remark.
There is a rising international push to handle the affect of social media on younger individuals’s psychological well being.
In September, a French parliamentary fee probing the psychological results of TikTok beneficial banning social media for kids underneath 15 and adopting a “digital curfew” for 15- to 18-year-olds.
The fee was launched in March, after seven households sued TikTok in late 2024, accusing them of getting uncovered their kids to content material that would push them to suicide.
Macron in latest weeks has urged stricter oversight of social media and their algorithms, describing it because the “Wild West”.
In a world first, Australia on Wednesday banned under-16s from social media, declaring it was time to “take again management” from formidable tech giants.
New Zealand and Malaysia are mulling related restrictions.
YouTube, Meta and different social media giants have lined as much as condemn the ban.
