The participation of young people in so-called ‘online challenges’ has long riddled the Internet. Recently, police in the UAE are digging for clues about another online phenomenon that may have prompted two Filipino teenagers, both Grade 10 students, to commit suicide.
On Tuesday, April 24, the Dubai Police Control Room was alerted to the first incident: a depressed 16-year-old committed suicide in a shared apartment in Al Ghusais, Gulf News reported.
Sources have linked the death of the second suicide victim to the Blue Whale challenge, although police authorities have yet to confirm this.
“At 11pm, on Wednesday, we received another call about [a] boy who jumped to his death in Al Ghusais area too. The boy was a very clever student and an only child. The father couldn’t believe that the body on the pavement belonged to his son,” a police official was quoted as saying in the report.
It was a scene too graphic to handle: the 15-year-old boy jumped from the building while his father was fast asleep.
“Both students are from the same school but are not related. The girl hanged herself inside her room and the boy plunged to death from the eighth floor of his building,” the official added.
The two suicide incidents point to an online challenge, called the ‘Blue Whale’ challenge, that costed the lives of several people in various parts of the globe, mostly youngsters.
For his part, Philippine Consul General Paul Raymund Cortes told the report, “The Consulate-General is in touch with school administrators and are in contact with relevant local authorities on the subject.”
Similar incidences
In February 2017, two 15-year-olds jumped off a building in Siberia after completing 50 tasks sent to them by the Blue Whale curator.
Before they killed themselves, they left messages on their social network pages by publishing the photo of a giant blue whale captioned ‘End’.
A month later, Russian authorities started investigating multiple cases of suicide related to the phenomenon.
The challenge
Players of the Blue Whale challenge follow a series of instructions on social media, carrying out 50 assigned tasks. It starts with watching a scary movie and moves to extremes, including self-harm. For the 50th task, the participant is told to commit suicide.
While it is hard to pinpoint the primary reason people have been lured to participate in the challenge, it is relatively easy to look at the present scenario: how increased exposure to gadgets and social media has a direct effect to adolescents.
An alarming fact highlighted by a recent study, done by the think tank DQ (Digital Quotient) Institute and the Nanyang Technological University, both in Singapore, is that 12-year-olds in Singapore spend almost 46 hours a week or just over 390 minutes a day on electronic devices. Even nine-year-old [children] spend over 24 hours a week, or about 210 minutes daily, doing the same, Dr. Yuhyun Park, founder of DQ Institute, said in an interview with The Straits Times.
Looking ahead: talking them out of it
Speaking about the Blue Whale Challenge in May, Colonel Saeed Al Hajiri, Director of the Cybercrimes Department at Dubai Police, told the media that there were no reports of games-related suicides in the UAE.
He said, “The police will patrol the web to prevent any exploitation of children, and they will also continue with their efforts to spread awareness about negative or dangerous online activities that pose a risk to the community.”
In November 2017, 999 Magazine, the official publication of the UAE’s Ministry of Interior, reported that the bad stuff online isn’t limited by physical borders. For instance, the Blue Whale Challenge, which originated in Russia, has also found its targets in South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
Irene Corpuz, an information technology security expert at an Abu Dhabi government department, told 999 that the bad influence of online games and trends can quickly turn into a perilous game of dare, even when they start with good intentions.
“For games, it should only be on weekends. As the kids grow to teens, we know they’ll need the Internet more for their school research work. While a constant reminder helps a lot, communication is the key,” Corpuz told the report.
She added: “You need to know their friends, talk to the teachers in school, get them involved in community activities, where they’re surrounded by other kids of their age supporting a good cause.”
