The Blue Whale game or Blue Whale Challenge is believed to be a suicide game wherein a group of administrators or a certain curator gives a participant a task to complete daily — for a period of 50 days — the final of which is the participant committing suicide. Participants are expected to share photos of the challenges/tasks completed by them.
These daily tasks start off easy — such as listening to certain genres of music, waking up at odd hours, watching a horror movie, among others, and then slowly escalate to carving out shapes on one’s skin, self-mutilation and eventually suicide.
There is still uncertainty over how a participant plays the game. While some say the user has to install some app on their smart phone, others say it’s via social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook where the administrators get in touch with the participant after those interested throw out postings on social media asking for a “curator”. A number of different hashtags— #bluewhalechallenge, #curatorfindme, #i_am_whale — act as signals for the anonymous curators.
It must be noted, however, that there still is no confirmation of the existence of the game, and suicides linked to it are from personal accounts of families/friends of those deceased who claim they have seen their loved ones performing tasks. While reports of suicides linked to the game have surfaced across the globe, authorities claim that the origin appears to be in Russia, which has reportedly seen about 130 related deaths and at least two arrests.
Schools as well as police officials in Europe and America have begun issuing advisories to parents urging them to be vigilant and to keep an eye out on what their children are sharing on their social media accounts.
NEW DELHI: The "Blue Whale" suicide challenge is a national problem, the Supreme Court said today, asking the government to get back to it within three weeks with a plan to ban the game that is believed to have driven many teens to suicide this year. The court also said state-run broadcaster Doordarshan and private TV channels must use prime time slots to spread awareness about the deadly game.
The government told the court that a group of experts are examining the Blue Whale problem and are expected to come up with a way of tackling it.
The online suicide game has been linked to at least six child suicides in the past few months, which prompted a concerned government to write to internet majors to remove links that draw users to the Blue Whale challenge.
In the macabre game that has been blamed for over 100 deaths across the world, a player is given dark tasks to complete over a period of 50 days, ranging from self-harm and cutting oneself to spending the night at a graveyard and watching horror movies alone. The final task is to commit suicide or kill someone close.
The Supreme Court had also asked the government to respond to a petition asking that deadly and violent online games like 'Choking game', 'Salt and Ice Challenge', 'Fire Challenge', 'Cutting challenge', 'Eyeball challenge' and 'Human Embroidery game' be firewalled.
Many state governments and schools put out a list of guidelines to raise awareness about the twisted game and also urged parents to keep a strict check on their children's online activities.