TikTok: Death of teenager Jools Sweeney was a horror

Evening Standard

A TikTok manager, appearing before MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, has described the death of schoolboy Jools Sweeney as a 'horror' and said the platform has a duty under GDPR to delete data after a certain amount of time.The 14-year-old took his own life in 2022 and his mother Ellen Roome believes his death could have been linked to an online challenge gone wrong.Ms Roome is one of five British parents suing TikTok after the deaths of their children, and she is also fighting for a change in the law to force social media firms to hand over children’s data to bereaved parents.

Transcript

00:00Good evening.

00:40So if I can start by saying I completely empathise with the point you're making about the horror of some

00:48of the situations that occurred, I think we've spoken to Jules' mother on a number of occasions about this issue.

00:59There is an ongoing court case and there's a limit to what I can say, as you'd expect, because it's

01:03important that those things play out.

01:05It is worth saying, though, when it comes to the question of data, we have talked to her about that

01:11and about the sequence of events, which means we have a duty, legal duties under GPR, to delete certain data

01:18after a certain amount of time.

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