TikTok Beats Suit Saying ‘Blackout Challenge’ Caused Child Death

TikTok Inc. escaped a lawsuit alleging the immensely popular social media platform recommended videos of the “blackout challenge” to a 10-year-old girl who strangled herself to death attempting to replicate the challenge.

A Pennsylvania federal judge ruled Tuesday that the short-form video-sharing app owned by the China-based ByteDance Inc. was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that immunizes online platforms from lawsuits over user-generated content.

The case was part of a recent wave of lawsuits advancing a new legal argument in an attempt to get around the historically impenetrable liability shield. The lawsuit, filed in ...