Long Island TikTok lawsuit: Parents counter First Amendment claim

Attorneys for the parents of a Bayport teenager who took his own his life in 2022 after his TikTok page allegedly was inundated with videos promoting suicide are urging a Suffolk judge to reject the social media app's argument that the First Amendment bars their claim.   

A filing this month from the parents of late 16-year-old Chase Nasca followed President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order allowing TikTok to continue operating in the U.S. for 75 days. The order was issued hours after the ban, which had been approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, went into effect. 

TikTok designed an "unreasonably dangerous social media product" that prompted Chase’s suicide and the company must be held responsible, attorney Harris Marks wrote in Feb. 5 court paperwork opposing the app's December motion to dismiss the litigation.

The app's design "maximized Chase Nasca's engagement through a progression of extreme videos which exploited his underdeveloped neurology and emotional insecurity," Marks also said, adding that the teen's death "was the foreseeable consequence" of that design.

Marks contended TikTok is a "product" under New York law and the company, owned by ByteDance Ltd., isn't immune to litigation or protected from the lawsuit by the First Amendment.

The Feb. 5 filing was in response to TikTok's motion in December that asked for the dismissal of the 2023 wrongful death lawsuit.

The company's Garden City attorney, Megan Lawless, said in court paperwork that not only should the lawsuit be barred by the First Amendment, but that the company is immunized against litigation by federal law and the app isn't a "tangible product" subject to product liability law.

"Chase's death is a tragedy, and defendants TikTok Inc. and ByteDance Inc. take the mental health and well being of TikTok users seriously," Lawless wrote in a Dec. 18 motion. "But a careful review of the complaint makes clear that plaintiff's legal theories based on the allegation that Chase viewed third-party content through the TikTok platform that encouraged self-harm are immunized by federal law, fail to state a claim, and cannot be heard in this jurisdiction."

Lawless' motion argues that TikTok's content is "protected speech" covered by the First Amendment while Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act "immunized" platforms such as TikTok from liability stemming from content created by third-party users. 

Lawless referred questions about the case to TikTok, which didn't respond to requests for comment. Marks and another attorney for the Nasca family also didn't respond to requests for comment. 

The lawsuit, one of dozens filed against TikTok and ByteDance in recent years, comes amid a precarious time for the social media behemoth. 

Former President Joe Biden signed a law, which passed overwhelmingly in Congress in 2024, forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban. 

The social media app has faced criticism and security concerns that the Chinese government is using it to spread propaganda and to collect data on its U.S. users. 

TikTok went dark for U.S. users for several hours last month, but returned after Trump signaled he would review the ban. In recent weeks, Trump selected Vice President JD Vance and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz to help broker the sale of the app to an American entity.

On Feb. 13, Apple and Google restored TikTok to their U.S. app stores nearly a month after it was removed.

The app's future in the United States is unlikely to have any direct impact on the Nasca's lawsuit, attorneys connected with the case have said previously.

Chase Nasca was a Bayport-Blue Point High School junior who was taking honors classes and had been accepted into an Olympic Development Program soccer team, according to the lawsuit.

It contends the teen had no history of anxiety or depression  when, around 2019 or 2020, he opened a TikTok account without his parents' permission and quickly became addicted to the app.

It alleges the teenager's TikTok search history showed he sought out videos on Batman, kitchen hacks and motivational workouts, but the app flooded his page with disturbing and violent videos, including "thousands" recommending suicide.

The lawsuit alleges the teen suffered a severe mental health decline after using the social media app, but didn’t show outward depression signs.  

Then on Feb. 18, 2022, Chase rode his bicycle to the Long Island Rail Road tracks near his home, texted "can't do it anymore" to a friend and stepped in front of a train, according to the lawsuit. 

Marks wrote in the Feb. 5 court filing that some of the TikTok videos allegedly directed to the teenager, who lived a quarter-mile from LIRR tracks, "encouraged young people to end their lives by stepping in front of a moving train."

The attorney added: "This was no coincidence. TikTok admits that it monitors users' GPS location and uses their location information to send them 'relevant' videos."

A Suffolk County judge last year dismissed the MTA, Long Island Rail Road and Islip Town — who were accused of not fencing off the area where Chase was killed — from the lawsuit.

With AP

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the lawsuit's description of Chase Nasca's behavior before he ended his life.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.