Warnings about självmordslek on the web disseminated by the media without evidence

On February 21, reports a large series of british media, including the tabloid Daily Mail, if a ”sinister självmordsspel” that is said to be disseminated among the british children. A Whatsapp user, whose profile picture depicts an eerie kvinnoliknande creature with large bulging eyes and long stripigt black hair, allegedly to add a child on chattappen and then ask them to damage themselves.

the Creature is a puppet originally created by the japanese sculptor Keisuke Aizawa is a monster from japanese folklore, an Ubume. The picture has been spread on the network, then at least 2016, when it was published on Instagram.

instagram.com/p/BJiFgx1BbS9

, to a ”självmordslek” spread on social media, according to the Daily mail and the local british The facebook page ”Love Westhoughton” that on February 17 this year to have published a letter from an anonymous mother. In the post, which today is not available on the Love Westhoughton, shall the mother's seven-year-old son warned classmates to a sinister dockliknande woman will kill them in their sleep.

this kind of warnings started to spread already during the autumn of 2018, even then, with warnings of an alleged självmordsspel portrayed by the same eerie doll. Then it was allegedly a twelve-year old argentine girl's suicide have been a result of ”Momo challenge” after that the police investigated such a link, something that has never been confirmed. In connection with this, among other things, Värmdö municipality out to the custodians in the schools and warned of the ”Momo challenge”. Still have no suicide, either in Sweden or internationally, in practice clearly confirmed to be associated with ”Momo”.

”Despite the fact that several deaths in different countries linked to the 'Momo' of the authorities, there are only indications and no clear proof of the fact that they are directly linked to the 'Momo challenge'”, wrote Metro's Viralgranskaren in september 2018.

This kind of warnings gained new momentum in February, and only since the end of February, among other things, the Daily Mail published over 20 articles on ”Momo challenge”, according to the Guardian-the editor, Chris Moran.

https://twitter.com/chrismoranuk/status/1101149291589058561

the Most widespread will be an article that the Daily Mail will publish on Wednesday, and claims that the creepy photos of ”Momo”the nature of the instructions on how you can hurt yourself, the spread in the video about the barnkaraktären Greta the pig and the popular online game Fortnite. This after some schools posted Facebookinlägg with påstånden about the ”creepy challenges hacks into halfway in the children's programmes on Youtube”. Daily Mail article shared hundreds of thousands of times. During Thursday published Youtube a press release where you said that you have not found any videos of this type, despite all the media coverage.

Headlines from the Daily Mail respectively, the Daily Mirror. Photo: screen-shot

According to teknikmagasinet Wired , it is precisely the coverage that may be behind this type of panics: ”Momo challenge” is not for real, but can be serious and scare children by warnings from the media, schools and the police. The risk is also that children try to mimic the described behavior. To report this type of warning, however, is alluring for many online medium, because writing such articles, in principle, ensures that they receive wide dissemination on social media.

In many ways are the warnings for ”Momo challenge” identical with a similar panic spread in 2017. Then called the challenge instead of the ”Blue whale challenge” and purported to be a ”game” that took place during the 50 days where the participants got to do the rougher and coarser tasks, until you eventually take the life of you day 50. Among other things, Expressen, and a series of schools warned for the Blue whale challenge. Even then, could get cases where young people have taken the life of the actually be linked to the alleged game, that Viralgranskaren wrote about in november 2017.

New York Magazine is it is not ”Momo” as the parents worry about on Youtube. Last week took the site off a great series of channels and millions of comments in an attempt to combat this several year old problem with pedophiles using Youtube as a source of clips of scantily clad or naked children. Often it has been informal networks, through the video's comments field referred to each other if the clips on the child, why Youtube has removed the commenting feature on videos where children under the age of 18 years are present. Youtube also has a problem with people who publish allegedly child-friendly videos with violent and sometimes sexual content, however, occur Momo not in these.

DN have searched The facebook page ”Love Westhoughton”.