TikTok, Instagram ‘goaded’ NYC teen into fatal subway surfing, shattered mom says in lawsuit
The mom of a Manhattan teen who died subway surfing last year claimed in a lawsuit Tuesday that TikTok and Instagram “goaded” her son into the deadly stunt by recommending videos to him of other kids climbing atop trains.
Norma Nazario filed her Manhattan Supreme Court suit on the one-year anniversary of the death of her 15-year-old son Zackery, who hit his head and tumbled between subway cars while “surfing” on top of a J train as it rolled across the Williamsburg Bridge.
The mom’s suit seeks unspecified damages from both social media companies and the MTA, which is accused of sitting on its hands instead of providing barriers to stop kids from climbing on its trains.
The lawsuit also demands that the court force the tech companies to change their “dangerous” recommendation technology that allegedly taunts other thrill-seekers to join in on the deadly trend.
“They could give me a billion dollars, and I’m not going to stop,” Norma Nazario told The Post of her crusade for change. “I’m not going to stop until the MTA and these social media companies start taking responsibility and stop killing our children.”
Zackery, then a 10th grader at the Clinton School in Union Square, climbed on the Brooklyn-bound train Feb. 20, 2023, shortly after receiving a video about the viral “Subway Surfing Challenge,” the lawsuit says. He died minutes later when he was struck in the head by a low beam and fell between two subway cars, according to the suit.
Tech companies have long claimed blanket legal protection from user-posted content under a 1996 law known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
But Nazario’s suit aims to hold TikTok and Instagram liable under state laws barring the “unreasonably dangerous” design of products — in this case, addictive content that the mom says “targeted, goaded and encouraged” the teenager to subway surf.
“What happened to Zackery was neither an accident or a coincidence,” said Matthew Bergman, co-founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, who represents the Nazario family.
“It was a foreseeable result of social media companies’ intentional decision to design their products to be addictive to young people,” Bergman told The Post of the tragedy.
Zackery Nazario was one of at least five people killed while subway surfing in 2023.
The troubling trend has continued into 2024 — with a 14-year-old boy killed as recently as last month — despite a city-run public service advertising campaign to try to turn the tide on the viral stunt.
The MTA did not comment Tuesday on the merits of Nazario’s suit — which accuses the agency of “creating a serious and foreseeable risk of harm” — but issued a reminder that subway surfing is deadly and that parents should speak to their kids about it.
“We’ve said it over and over — do not climb on top of trains because that won’t end well, and we implore parents to tell their children, and friends to warn friends — avoid tragedy by riding inside,” NYC Transit President Richard Davey said in a statement.
Reps for TikTok and Instagram did not immediately respond to Post requests for comment, and the tech giants had not retained lawyers in the case yet as of Tuesday afternoon.
TikTok and Instagram parent company Meta are some of the richest companies in the world, with tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue.
Nazario said the tech giants’ deep-pocketed status does not scare her away from fight for change.
“It doesn’t matter how powerful they are. I’m not stopping no matter what. That doesn’t intimidate me at all,” she told The Post, adding that the companies have not fixed the issue despite knowing about these dangers for “a long, long time.”
