A US appeals court has reopened the lawsuit brought by the mother of a ten-year-old girl against TikTok. The girl died after taking part in a viral “blackout challenge” in which users of the social media platform were asked to strangle themselves until they passed out.

Social media companies are generally protected by federal law from lawsuits over their content because the content is created by third-party users.

But the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that the law does not prevent Nylah Anderson’s mother from filing claims against TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance because the company’s algorithm recommended the lawsuit to her.

Patty Shwartz, a U.S. District Court judge and author of the three-judge panel, explained that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 only immunizes information provided by third parties, but not recommendations made by TikTok itself through an algorithm underlying the platform.

She acknowledged that the decision represents a departure from previous rulings by her and other courts that Section 230 exempts an online platform from liability if it fails to prevent its users from transmitting harmful messages to others.

However, she referred to a US Supreme Court ruling in July that algorithms are “editorial decisions” made by companies to “assemble the opinions of third parties they want in the manner they want.”

Schwartz said the companies’ customized algorithms reflected the speech, and their speech was not protected by Section 230.

“TikTok makes decisions about the content recommended and promoted to specific users, thereby engaging in its own first-hand opinion expression,” Schwartz wrote.

Nylah was hospitalized in December 2021 after replicating a blackout challenge she saw online.

She used a handbag strap from her mother’s closet and suffered serious injuries.

Nylah was in intensive care for several days before she died.

Tawainna Anderson’s lawsuit was originally dismissed by a lower court judge in October 2022, citing Section 230.

“Big tech companies just lost their ‘get out of here’ pass,” Jeffrey Goodman, the mother’s attorney, said in a statement.

The decision could mean that technology companies face more lawsuits in the future over the content recommended by their algorithms.

In an opinion, U.S. appeals judge Paul Matey partially agreed with Tuesday’s ruling, saying TikTok puts “profits above all other values” and can choose to offer children content that emphasizes “the lowest tastes” and “the lowest virtues.”

With post wires