New Game Causes Worries, Danger

There’s a new challenge swarming the internet called the “Blue Whale Challenge” or the “Blue Whale Game”, and it is setting tweens and teens up for danger.

According to the dailymail on March 10th, 2017, British police warned parents about a suicide game that targets vulnerable teens. The game is said to be behind hundreds of Russian teen deaths.

The Blue Whale game, or challenge, challenges participants to take part in serious tasks such as carving symbols into a hand, leg, inner arm, and slitting wrists. Over the course of 50 days there is a new task that can put one in danger.

The way that the app works is that it is an online game. Since it is not on the app store, if one downloads it on the internet, the “administrator” then can hacks into the person’s phone/device and takes any information needed (credit card, etc.).

Once a new task is sent, participants are instructed to do the risky tasks, take a picture, and send it as proof to the administrator. If the person does not do as instructed, the administrator of the group will threaten them.

The “group” is the amount of people playing. Every person in the game is a “whale” (one who signed up to play the game). To “win” the game, the participant takes their life. Such as to “beach” him or herself.

Other tasks include watching horror movies all day to wake themselves at 4:20am and looking for high-rise buildings where they could plan their suicide.

Currently, police officers in Britain are warning parents about the challenge by posting online warnings.

“The social media ‘game’ is being investigated by police in Russia in relation to a rash of teenage suicide attempts,” according to the dailymail.

Two teenagers in Russia, Veronika Volkova, 16, and Yulia Konstantinova, 15, fell to their death from a  14-story apartment building. A 14-year old girl from Chita was reported to have thrown herself under a commuter train. Two days later, Ekaterine, 15, was critically injured when she fell onto snowy ground from a flat in Krasnoyarsk. according to the dailymail.

According to the dailymail, Konstantinova posted a picture of a big blue whale on her social media page. Later leaving a note on her page saying “End”. Konstantinova friend, Volkova, wrote “‘Sense is lost… End”

As the dailymail said, “Teenagers are urged to use a knife or razor to make the shape of a whale on their wrist or leg, say Russian reports.”

Last year, 21 year old alleged leader Philip Budeikin was detained and charged with organizing groups that promote suicide, from 2013 to 2016.

Though the suicide game is unproven to be solely responsible for the deaths, the warnings from police to parents is increasing.

According to the dailymail, Budeikin who was charged of inciting at least 16 schoolgirls to commit suicide, told the investigators that he thinks the young female victims were “happy to die”. Budeikin claims that the children that the game is aimed towards is “biological waste” and that he is “cleansing society”

According to the dailymail, Budeikin confessed to the crimes.