Lawsuit holding social media giants liable for subway surfing deaths moves forward
The viral trend on social media places teens on the roofs of train cars and challenges them to surf will the train is moving.
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A lawsuit filed against social media platforms TikTok and Instagram moves forward following dismissal attempt in January of 2025.
In 2023, Norma Nazario's son, Zackery, was killed from subway surfing on the Williamsburg Bridge.
The viral trend on social media places teens on the roofs of train cars and challenges them to surf will the train is moving.
According to NYPD statistics, the issue has persisted over the years. Data shows five teen deaths in 2023, six deaths in 2024, and three in 2025 between Jan. 1 and July 9. The most recent incident occurred on July 4 when a 15-year-old from the Bronx died subway surfing in Queens.
Nazario filed a lawsuit against the social media parent companies, ByteDance and META, blaming them for her son's death. The suit states platforms like TikTok and Instagram operate on algorithms that target minors.
"Social media companies exploit the fact that teenagers' brains aren't fully developed, that they don't have the reasoning capacity that adults do. Not because they're bad kids, just because they're kids!" said Matthew Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center. "They don't show kids material they want to see, they show kids material they can't look away from."
The suit claims the algorithms push content on minors that they didn't necessarily search for.
In January, the social media companies fought back and moved to dismiss the case.
On June 27, the judge ruled to move forward with the case on the serious allegation of wrongful death.
"It provides an opportunity for parents to hold social media companies accountable... These platforms could do so much more to stop this, and they're not doing it," said Bergman.
News 12 attempted to search for videos of subways surfing on both TikTok and Instagram, and both platforms now include safety disclaimers when the words are searched, and prevents people from scrolling through videos.
