Blue Whale Challenge: Authorities Warn Parents, Teens About App That Encourages Self-Harm, Suicide

There’s hashtag sweeping the social media accounts of teens that seems innocent enough but reportedly can have severe consequences. Authorities and school officials have been warning parents about the #BlueWhaleChallenge.

The Blue Whale Challenge is supposedly set up as a game that comes in a series of challenges over 50 days, encouraging players to harm themselves with the final challenge of suicide. Those warnings say that the challenge is being conducted over a web app.

Read: What Is The Yellow App? Parents, Police Worried About Teen Safety, Privacy

While there has been no definitive link made between the game or challenge and any suicides, authorities are taking the precaution of warning parents and teachers. School districts and authorities around the world are telling parents and teens to stay away from the challenge due to its dangerous nature. The superintendent of schools in Danbury, Connecticut, sent a letter to parents, warning them about the trend and game, Patch reported. Additionally, officials in the United Kingdom have warned parents as well.

Concern about the game was reportedly sparked by the suicides of teens in Russia last month although a link between the game and the deaths has yet to be made.

Philipp Budeikin, 21, is being held in a prison in St, Petersburg on charges of inciting teenage girls to kill themselves via the game/app, the BBC reported. The BBC also reported Budeikin told the Russian press his victims were “biological waste. ”

Those playing the game reportedly are approached in messaging groups on the website vk.com, a global social networking and messaging site. Conversations on the site center around Blue Whale Curators who give challenges and keep the game going for those playing. Some comments and conversations also have lists of challenges or demands to self-harm, watch a horror film or perform a task.

There are a number of different hashtags on social media. Searches for #bluewhalechallenge or #i_am_whale on Instagram result in a popup message with three options. Users can choose “get support” which redirects to Instagram’s help page, see posts anyway or cancel. Selecting “see posts anyway” results in a normal search of photos tagged with the hashtag. That search is populated with videos of teens talking about the challenge, posting warnings and graphic photos of injuries, self-inflicted or otherwise.

Twitter is also full of people using the hashtags to attract a “curator” who is part of the game. Many of these tweets have replies from other people on Twitter urging the original poster not to continue with the game.

The hacker/activist group Anonymous launched a campaign to attempt to bring down the game two months ago, the group announced in a video. A second video with an update of the takedown was posted in March. The group claimed to have taken down 3,000 accounts including moderator accounts.

Again, no direct link has been made between any self-harm or suicides and the Blue Whale Challenge game or web app.