A Manhattan mom whose 15-year-old son died while subway surfing can move forward with a lawsuit against the social media companies that she says helped to popularize the dangerous trend, a state judge has ruled.
Norma Nazario sued TikTok parent company ByteDance, Instagram parent company Meta, the MTA and the New York City Transit Authority after her son, Zackery Nazario, fell off the top of a subway car and died in February 2023. She accused the social media companies of creating addictive apps that inundate young people with videos that encourage them to participate in unsafe activities. She also accused the transit system of not doing enough to prevent subway surfing.
In a decision late last month, Justice Paul A. Goetz dismissed several of Nazario’s claims against the companies and dropped transit officials from the lawsuit. But in his 19-page ruling, he said the mother should be allowed to continue to pursue many of the allegations in her case against ByteDance and Meta. The judge said Nazario should have the chance to gather more information from the companies and learn whether they may have targeted susceptible young people with content about subway surfing to keep them scrolling on the apps…