'Blackout Challenge' on TikTok Is Luring Young Kids to Death

The Arroyo family in Arriani's bedroom.

Children are dying from the blackout challenge. Why isn't the world's most popular app doing more to protect them?

Olivia Carville

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"Sissy's tangled!"

The 5-year-old boy's panicked cries echoed down the hallway of the Arroyos’ three-bedroom clapboard house in Milwaukee. It was February 2021, and he’d been playing with his 9-year-old sister, Arriani, before bedtime. Their mother was at a Bible study class, and their father was in his basement workshop, out of earshot. The boy had watched Arriani climb atop a toy chest, wrap a metal dog leash around her neck and hook the buckle to the wardrobe door hinge. Now she was hanging 2 feet from the ground, kicking and desperately scratching at her neck.