Post by Liberian Girl on Jul 30, 2017 18:37:02 GMT
This story that's been in the news recently really unnerves me. There's an online app, that people can download called Blue Whale Challenge (although there are other versions, with other titles) and basically, the person signs up to it, and accepts various challenges that they have to photograph in order to prove they have completed the tasks set for them. The only catch? The people who work behind the scenes are said to use psychological tactics to get the person playing the app game to do things like harm themselves or put themselves in danger. There have even been cases where teenagers have taken their own lives.
I find this really disturbing, really creepy.
Apparently the person who designed the Blue Whale Challenge app has been arrested because of the damage it has had upon young people playing it.
According to an article on the Independent news website:
"A teenager died after taking part in an online suicide game called the ‘Blue Whale Challenge,’ his family have said.
The body of Isaiah Gonzales, 15, from the Texan city of San Antonio, was found hanging in a cupboard with a mobile phone set up nearby to apparently broadcast his death.
The Blue Whale Challenge is an unsubstantiated phenomenon, whereby participants are said to be guided through a series of tasks over 50 days, such as self-harming and watching horror films all night, culminating in a suicide.....After examining his social media and internet activity, Isaiah’s family are convinced it was responsible for their son’s death.
“It talks about satanic stuff and stuff like that and my son was never into that,” his father Jorge told local broadcaster WOAI.
Isaiah’s death, along with that of an unnamed Georgia girl also thought to have been participating in the Blue Whale Challenge, would be the first in the US to be linked to the macabre game.
Deaths of teenagers have also been reported in Russia - where the game is thought to have originated - as a result of the challenge.
The link for the above story is: Teen Suicide App - The Independent
Have you heard of anything like this before? I think it's really scary, how vulnerable people can be used in such ways. Particularly troubled children and teenagers.