Korean automaker Hyundai is to pay up to $200 million in compensation to owners of its vehicles in the United States after a series of thefts and car crashes caused by a viral challenge on TikTok.
A major decision for Hyundai. In order to put an end to collective actions, the South Korean firm has reached an agreement to compensate around 9 million owners of Hyundai and Kia released between 2011 and 2022, such as the Elantra, Santa Fe and Tucson models, according to a press release published this Thursday, May 18.
Several deaths recorded by the authorities
The TikTok challenge dubbed “Kia Challenge” was born on the popular platform in 2022, after thieves known under the pseudonym “Kia Boyz” showed in video how to force start certain vehicles using a USB cable. The number of thefts exploded in stride, and the phenomenon “resulted in at least 14 accidents and 8 deaths”, according to the American Highway Safety Agency (NHTSA). In February, the authority announced the deployment by Hyundai-Kia of free anti-theft software on millions of cars without an immobilizer system.
According to the agreement unveiled Thursday, the manufacturer will reimburse consumers whose vehicle has been stolen or damaged and whose costs have not been covered by their insurance, including deductibles and related premium increases.
Tiktok in the sights of elected Americans
TikTok, which belongs to the Chinese group ByteDance, is in a difficult position in the United States while many elected officials on the right and on the left want to ban the application from the country. They accuse it of serving as a Trojan horse in Beijing, to spy on and manipulate users, which the company has always denied. The social network is also regularly criticized for viral challenges where users promote dangerous or illegal actions. The US state of Montana has just enacted a law that bans TikTok from January 1, 2024.
She mentions national security but also the fact that the platform does not fight, according to the legislators, against this type of content, from the “game of the headscarf”, in which minors try to asphyxiate themselves, to the challenges linked to the coronavirus or to cars.
2023-05-19 21:07:04
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