Is Blue Whale Game the game which kills ?

The Blue Whale is a sequence of online dares that participants must progressively engage in to get ahead. These include etching a blue whale on your skin and jumping off buildings. There have been some reported suicides in India of youths who were playing or had searched for the game online. Importantly, police officials have so far claimed that there is no evidence that these youths took their lives following instructions from the game. There is also no report of authorities actually encountering this game online in India.

The claim that the blue whale suicide game had resulted in a wave of suicides appears to have originated with a "misinterpretation" of a May 2016 story from the Russian site Novaya Gazeta. That article linked dozens of suicides of children in Russia during a six-month span, who were all part of a gaming community, on social media network VKontakte (VK.com). But subsequent investigations by other Russian news agencies showed that there were online communities or suicide groups on VK.com, but again nothing that linked an entity called 'Blue Whale' and a flurry of suicides.

Rina Palenkovoy was a Russian teenager who had posted a picture of herself on VK.com and then committed suicide. However, there were online communities like 'Sea of Whales' and f57 - all hosted on VK.com - that promoted role-playing games with tasks to be carried out in the real world. None of these, however, seems to require jumping off buildings but they do veer towards extolling suicide.

On November 14, 2016, police outside Moscow arrested 21-year-old Filipp Budeikin on suspicion of being an organiser of a Blue Whale death group.

The popular belief which has driven parents and legislators in many countries to ask for a ban, that the game induces the player to commit suicide is markedly false. Suicide-promotion forums predate the Internet and popular music and literature have abounded with artists and writers who have condoned self-harm and suicide.

The Blue Whale is a sort of phenomenon. The best way to understand the Blue Whale is to look at the Ice Bucket Challenge, which too went viral on the web. The Ice Bucket Challenge spread after social media people tagged their friends and asked them to complete it. This was all for a good cause. It was simple. And a lot of people took up the challenge.

The Blue Whale is a similar sort of challenge but malicious. At its core is something that Budeikin reportedly said. He claimed that the idea behind the Blue Whale was to get rid of biological waste from the society. It is to push vulnerable people, and kids with low self esteem, towards suicide.

So what is the solution for this. The government and schools must run special campaigns in schools for awareness. Students should be taught about the disastrous effects of the challenge to prevent them from playing the game and ending their lives.

The blue whale game has emerged as a major threat and reportedly claimed over a hundred lives world over. Nearly half a dozen cases of children playing the blue whale challenge have emerged in India recently. A incident was reported in Mangaluru, wherein a student was found playing the game. However later his parents came to know about it. They made him undergo counselling and he is fine now.

The Blue Whale should be taken seriously. It is a not life killing game, but youngsters with weak mindset are being influenced. People should join hands together to get rid of this new found virus.

Source : See and Say