In 2022, 16-year-old Chase Nasca committed suicide by walking in front of a train near his home on Long Island, New York.
Now, Nasca’s parents are taking legal action against ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, for the role the social media platform played in their son’s death.
According to the New York Post, court documents claim that TikTok used location tracking to suggest “railroad themed suicide videos” to Nasca. The family lived near a commuter train track. The teen was allegedly bombarded with these suicide-themed videos leading up to his death, even when he sought out videos meant to inspire him to get better (via NYP):
The China-owned platform actually went so far as to tailor the morbid videos around the fact that Chase lived close to the Long Island Rail Road — even though the promising high-school soccer player had only started out seeking “uplifting and motivational” videos, according to a filing Feb. 5 opposing TikTok’s bid to get the suit thrown out.
“Some of the videos [TikTok] directed to Chase, who lived a quarter mile from the LIRR tracks, encouraged young people to end their lives by stepping in front of a moving train,” the court documents say. “This was no coincidence.”
[...]
“TikTok used Chase’s geolocating data to send him … railroad themed suicide videos both before and after his death,” the court papers claim.
TikTok used location tracking to send ‘railroad themed suicide videos’ to LI teen who lived by tracks — and later walked in front of train: court docs https://t.co/tkLyYqimC7 pic.twitter.com/1n4r2wO7Oe
— New York Post (@nypost) February 18, 2025
In December, the tech giant filed a motion to dismiss the case brought forward by Dean and Michelle Nasca. In the motion, ByteDance claimed that content on TikTok is “protected speech” covered by the First Amendment.
Dean and Michelle Nasca claim that their son’s death was part of “intentional design decisions” by the company. The app, they claim, showed him “extreme videos which exploited his underdeveloped neurology and emotional insecurity.”
Chase Nasca was a junior in high school when he died. While he utilized TikTok to look for motivational content, he was recommended “thousands of suicidal videos into his ‘for you’ page” instead.
On Feb. 18, 2022, he was returning home from the gym when he sent a friend a message on Snapchat stating, “I can’t do it anymore.” He walked in front of an MTA train right after. His parents previously spoke out about their son's experience with TikTok in a hearing on Capitol Hill.
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