Achal Bhagat, Delhi psychiatrist, BBC News India, September 19, 2017Īmerican skeptic Ben Radford researched the phenomenon, calling it the "moral panic du jour" and equating it to the Dungeons & Dragons controversies of the 1980s. that is possibly why some children have said they participated in the rumoured challenge despite there being no proof of its existence." "People join narratives to explain their experiences . īy late 2017, reported participation in Blue Whale was receding however, internet safety organisations across the world have reacted by giving general advice to parents and educators on suicide prevention, mental health awareness, and online safety in advance of the next incarnation of cyberbullying. While many experts suggest "Blue Whale" was originally a sensationalised hoax, they believe that it is likely that the phenomenon has led to instances of imitative self-harming and copycat groups, leaving vulnerable children at risk of cyberbullying and online shaming. As professor at Russian State University for the Humanities, Alexandra Arkhipova found that the administrators were found to be children aged between 12 and 14, drawn to the story as it became widely reported and not, as the hysteria had intimated, predatory adults. Over a period of fifty days the administrator sets one task per day the tasks seem innocuous to begin with ("get up at 4:30 a.m.", "watch a horror movie"), and move on to self-harm, leading to the participant killing themselves on the final day. The game is said to run on different social media platforms and is described as a relationship between an administrator and participant. Its opening lines are "Why scream / When no one hears / What we're talking about?" and it features a "huge blue whale" that "can't break through the net." Others believe it to be a reference to beaching, where whales become stranded on beaches and die. Some reports say that it comes from a song by the Russian rock band Lumen. The origin of the name "Blue Whale" is uncertain. After an investigation by Evgeny Berg for Meduza, Mursaliyeva responded by saying in fact there had been at least 200 suicides. The number was originally suggested by the father of one of the teenagers, Sergey Pestov, who came to the figure 130 by using Russian media sources to look for child suicides he believed were linked to online groups he then produced a brochure which implied that foreign intelligence operatives were responsible for encouraging Russian children to die by suicide. Mursaliyeva's article was criticised at the time of its release for lacking credible data and balance, with the 130 cases of suicide cited being particularly problematic. The article described the "F57" groups on Russian social media site VK, which she claimed had incited 130 teenagers to kill themselves. Soon after, Russian journalist Galina Mursaliyeva first wrote about these "death groups" in an article published in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta in April 2016. Further suicides were added to the group stories. In November 2015, a Russian teenager posted a selfie with the caption "nya bye" before dying by suicide her death was then discussed in internet forums and groups, becoming mixed with scare stories and folklore. However, experts have stated that it is difficult or even impossible to ban the game. The game has reportedly been banned in some countries, including Egypt, Kenya and Pakistan. Claims of suicides connected to the game have been reported worldwide, but none have been confirmed. However, the piece was later criticised for attempting to make a causal link where none existed, and none of the suicides were found to be a result of the group activities. "Blue Whale" first attracted news coverage in May 2016 in an article in the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta that linked many unrelated child suicides to membership of group "F57" on the Russian-based VK social network. It is a "game" reportedly consisting of a series of tasks assigned to players by administrators over a 50-day period, initially innocuous before introducing elements of self-harm and the final challenge requiring the player to kill themselves. " Blue Whale" ( Russian: Синий кит, romanized: Siniy kit), also known as the " Blue Whale Challenge", is a social network phenomenon dating from 2016 that is claimed to exist in several countries.
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