TikTok insists it has “not seen the ‘Benaryl Challenge’,” a social media trend that led to the death of a 13-year-old boy in Ohio last week.
• Also read: TikTok challenge: Teen succumbs to Benadryl overdose
• Also read: A teenager dies after a dangerous TikTok challenge
Jacob Stephens participated in the challenge for six days before making the fatal mistake of ingesting too much of the chemical.
A spokesperson for the app said after the tragedy: ‘Our deepest sympathy is with the family [de Jacob Stevens]. At TikTok, we strictly prohibit and remove any content that promotes dangerous behaviour; The safety of residents is at the heart of our priorities.”
“We’ve never seen this kind of content on our platform and we’ve blocked searches for years to discourage this type of behavior.”
The company added: “Content related to this challenge predates the existence of the TikTok platform and keywords linking this content to the app are not available. These searches have been redirected to our Terms of Service page for several years.
However, according to numerous reports, the “Benadryl Challenge” has been known since 2020 and not “many years” and “before the platform existed”.
Jonson & Johnson also published a press release in 2020 stating that “the trend of challenging Benaryl on TikTok is deeply disturbing and dangerous and should stop immediately.”
– According to information from Indy100
