What is the Blue Whale and why it is important for parents to know
'24.05.2017'
What is the "Blue Whale"?
“Blue Whale”, “Blue Whale”, “F57”, “Silent House” are the names of groups and communities on social networks that promote the aesthetics of death and involve teenagers in a game that ends in suicide with various manipulative tasks.
The first such groups were recorded in the Russian segment of the popular social network VKontakte in 2016, although there is information that groups and administrators started work much earlier.
According to one version, the "Blue Whale" personifies the whale that has fallen ashore and dies. According to another version - the name is borrowed from the group's song. Lumen.
Game distribution history
After several cases of suicide among adolescents, law enforcement agencies were able to connect the tragedies that occurred with children, with their communication in groups, in social networks. Administrator of the St. Petersburg group Philip Lisa was arrested, and he is awaiting trial. A little later, began to catch and other administrators. So in February of this year, when the fascination with suicidal groups went beyond the borders of Russia, 4 people were arrested in North Ossetia.
В February it became knownThe 15-year-old schoolchild from Kazakhstan suffered during the performance of the Blue Whale task. On the arm of a teenager found about 70 cuts. The child said that this was the second task in the game.
In the same month, the body of an 19-year-old girl was found in the Kazakh city of Karaganda. Investigators suggest that her death could be associated with the game "Blue Whale".
The next country, where the "Blue Whale" began to spread with cosmic speed, was Ukraine. In February – March, four children died, and the 6 people in various regions of the country were saved by the police.
February 15 in Kherson police prevented suicide of two 17-year-old girls. A similar incident with two teenagers occurred on February 19 in Kiev, the teenagers remained alive.
In the city of Dubno in the Rivne region, the police identified a whole group of teenagers who were playing “death games.” The last case recorded by law enforcement officers occurred in Lutsk - they managed to save the child.
Many journalists began to conduct their own investigations and publish them on various resources, which created panic among their parents. After a few months, you can already appreciate - the panic bore fruit. Parents began to pay more attention to where the adolescents are, what they do in social networks and whether there is anything disturbing in their behavior.
In schools, interviews were conducted with parents and children on the topic of suicidal groups on social networks.
They did not have time to take a breath in Ukraine, and information began to appear that the Blue Whale groups migrated from VKontakte to other social networks.
According to the head of Ukraine’s cyber police Sergei Demedyuk, when the police block one group, the teenagers find another and register again, continue the “game”. If you enter the hashtag # blue in the social network search, the results are shocking: literally every minute a new participant is registered.
One day, 13 appears before thousands of new users in similar groups.
In March, incidents of attempted suicide related to games on social networks in Latvia were recorded. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, tried to commit suicide by jumping from the roof of an old abandoned factory. According to the investigation, the guy went through all the 50 levels of the game.
In early spring, the game went beyond the borders of the post-Soviet countries
The first to respond is Bulgaria. Ninth-graders of one of the schools complained that there were groups in which strangers write assignments, and with any response write the phrase: "You're in the game." But Internet developers, providers and the Bulgarian police are already aware of this mass phenomenon, so they respond quite adequately - conduct preventive conversations with adolescents and parents.
Later reports began to appear that the "Blue Whale" sailed to Spain, then to Mexico, Colombia and Brazil. Given the speed of distribution of groups, the police do not have time to cope with this volume, and several children could not be saved. Investigations into mysterious teen suicides have been reported, inter alia, by the police of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.
Colombian investigating authorities are linking The recent suicides of three teenagers are passionate about dangerous Internet games.
The father of the deceased teenage girl told a local radio station Blu radiothat he noticed some oddities in the behavior of his daughter, which prompted him to the idea that she was fond of suicidal play.
Freddie Bautista, head of the e-crime department of the Colombian police, told reporters that he knew about this game and had already received a number of complaints from parents of teenagers excited by the dangerous Internet hobbies of their children. According to him, the police intend to investigate these data with the participation of Interpol.
A similar investigation is being carried out by the Rio de Janeiro police, where in early April an 19-year-old teenager tried to commit suicide under the influence of a Facebook game.
The management of one of the educational institutions of the Peruvian department of Lima reports about the attempts of 5 students to injure themselves, according to the terms of the online game.
In late April in the UK local authorities sent letters to schools urging parents to be vigilant, and children “to block or not to respond to messages on the network that cause feelings of anxiety, inconvenience or threat”.
And just recently Departments Miami and California They began to warn American parents that the dangerous game had already reached a new level and was beginning to capture the attention of US teenagers.
Here is the latest dynamic of popularity in Google:
How is the game going?
To participate in the game, a teenager must leave the hashtag # bluekit on his page on the social network. The hashtag is often accompanied by poems or some special phrases that mention the blue whale.
The game begins after the publication of the message: the curator of the game contacts the user, usually from an account that cannot be identified. He explains the rules:
• do not tell anyone about this game;
• always complete tasks, whatever they may be;
• for failure to fulfill any task, a teenager is excluded from the game forever and bad consequences await him.
Then the curator issues assignments, one per day. The first tasks are often quite harmless. But sometimes from the first tasks it becomes clear that the game is dangerous. For example - make cuts on an arm or leg, take a picture and send it to a curator. Total tasks - 50.
The tasks are connected with inflicting physical harm on oneself ("cut f57 with a blade on the hand"), whales ("draw a whale on a leaf") and fear ("watch scary videos all day"). Another version of the assignments was called "Run or Die" - a teenager must cross the road in front of a passing car and shoot it on video.
This 13-year-old handsome, I saw with my own eyes. And he was lucky that the driver of the car in which I was sitting had time to react, and no one was hurt.
To perform some tasks, the player must climb onto the roof of a skyscraper. The tasks from 30 to 49 are as follows: “every day at 4: 20 you wake up, watch videos, listen to music, and every day you make one cut on your arm, talk to a whale”. The remaining tasks do not differ in originality: you need to cut yourself more or cause some more violence (bruises, abrasions), draw and write what you are asked to, watch a video about suicide, and so on.
The last task is suicide.
Curators can change throughout the game. Some are blocked, but they return under other nicknames. If the social network temporarily blocks the page of the “whale” himself, who has decided to die, then after restoring the account, the curators will still find it and continue to send quest tasks.
If the user decides to leave the game, the curator promises to come to his home and kill his parents. To find out the address, the curator sends the user a link to the service, fixing geodata or ip-address.
Russian psychologists argue that this whole game is nothing more than urban horror stories, and tender adolescence already has enough reasons for suicidal tendencies.
“The scary stories that the Blue Whale game is pushing for suicide are a classic urban legend, while there is an ostencia phenomenon in which a person brings to life a folk story, such as someone having heard a story about the Blue Whale game. ", Can create a corresponding public," - said in the commentary "Medusa", which was prepared by experts of the research group "Monitoring of Actual Folklore" of the Institute of Social Sciences under the RANEPA Alexander Arkhipov, Maria Volkova and Anna Kirzyuk.
But the fact remains that children die after communicating with manipulators in social networks. From where the curators come from and who is the instigator of all this disgrace - still remains a mystery. Over the past year, more than 130 children have died, who, before their death, communicated in the “Blue Whale” groups on social networks.
What to do to protect your child?
The most important thing is to talk to the child. Do not wait until he starts to search for information on the Internet or try to enter the game out of curiosity.
Explain that groups are created primarily by adolescents who have certain psychological problems.
Pay attention to your child's behavior. A sharp change in mood, social circle, image - should already alert. If a child stays up late at the computer, this is a reason for serious concern. It is important during adolescence not to lose contact with the child. He should know that with his problems, his pain can come to mom or dad, and not spill out to strangers on social networks.
Check the child's tablet and computer - what games are installed there. There are stories from parents that under the seemingly innocent virtual toys, such as a pink Pony, another trap for a child can be hidden. If the Pony in the game invites the child to play a game with secrets from his mother or invites him to climb onto the windowsill, delete it immediately.
Explain the rules of behavior on the web:
- do not chat with strangers online;
- add only those you know personally as friends on social networks;
- do not post candid photos intended only for close people;
- do not share your geo-data, disable geolocation services in applications;
- respect your privacy in chats, remember that your messages can be read by a stranger.
When the “Blue Whales” topic came up, I spoke not only with my daughter, but also with some of her friends, explained everything in detail and answered all their questions. One boy had to explain for half an hour what geolocation is, why it cannot be communicated to strangers, and that even if someone can calculate the approximate location, he is unlikely to come to his home to harm his parents. A child lacks basic knowledge that it is impossible to give personal information to strangers. Such children most often become victims of manipulators.
Among other things, pedophiles and scammers began to use mass hysteria about the "Blue Whale". It may look like the group "Against the blue whale" or "Psychological assistance to a teenager." In such groups there is a collection of information, photographs and a veiled contact with pedophiles.
Psychologists tried to make a portrait of the curators of these groups, on the example of the same Philip the Fox. These are sociopaths who shun society and real communication. Before the advent of social networks, these were gloomy loners who, to satisfy their curiosity and needs, killed animals in wastelands or mocked those who are younger and weaker, bringing panic and hysterics to persecution in children's playgrounds and in the courtyards.
Now they have the opportunity to compensate for their complexes using social networks. There you can come up with any name, any nickname, any biography and realize your pathological desires. It is likely that suicide is not the goal, but rather a feeling of power and the ability to manipulate others.
Not all children can be manipulated. My 11-year-old daughter said that all this is nonsense, and no normal teenager would draw a blue whale on herself or cut herself with a knife.
Alas, the risk group exists:
Children from dysfunctional families.
Children who are experiencing moral or psychological trauma. Even the death of a pet can be a catalyst for the fragile psyche of a teenager.
Children who are experiencing a divorce of parents.
Children who are given little attention.
Children who do not know the safety rules on the Internet.
Children who replace real communication with virtual.
Conspirator versions
A surge of teen suicides in Russia has been observed over the last 20 years 2 times - in the 2001 year and in the 2011-2012. The information was carefully hidden, the media almost did not write about it, but law enforcement agencies were seriously concerned that teenagers for no reason, throw themselves from rooftops, throw themselves under trains, hang themselves and poison themselves. The wave was called the "Werther effect." At the end of the 18th century, Goethe’s novel The Sufferings of the Young Werther was popular. The first edition of the novel came out in the fall of 1774, to the Leipzig Book Fair and immediately became a bestseller. Revised edition was released in 1787 year. The novel gave Goethe fame throughout Germany. Not one of Goethe’s essays was read by so many contemporaries.
The spread of the novel triggered a wave of imitative suicides in Europe, which was later called the Werther effect. This effect was so strong that in a number of states the authorities banned the distribution of the book.
In 2011, it was forbidden to mention the names of the victims and the method of suicide in the press, due to which the wave quickly began to decline. And no death groups in social networks then existed, although one of the versions was that they simply did not find. However, as well as the reason why the number of suicides has increased.
Even earlier, in the 2007 year, a gaming site called the “Big Game” appeared. It housed a multi-level online game. Players were offered to perform various tasks, for example, to collect the addresses of opponents who support the aliens. The list of opponents included security forces, human rights activists, officials, politicians. Then it was necessary to break a shop window, turn the car over or throw a dummy bomb into the police station. The first tasks were held in the virtual plane, and then - in real life. For the transition to each new level, the player received points and bonuses. But all his actions had to be documented. The last task is to kill the alien.
The authors of the site said that their task was to change the system and assemble an army for this. The search for the creators continued for a long time, the site moved from the Netherlands to Malaysia, and then further. And when at last they were able to calculate the owners, they were poor beggars. Which, of course, could not spend millions of dollars on the creation and support of such a site.
So, in the case of Blue Whales, very similar methods of manipulation are used. Only they are directed not at pogroms or harming others, but at hurting a child who has agreed to participate in the game. One of the versions is that the creation of such groups serves as a kind of preliminary preparation for something more serious, and at the moment the techniques of manipulation are being worked out, while on teenagers.
And finally, the most important thing - no panic. "Forewarned is forearmed". Talk with your children, explain to them easily and openly about all difficult things, answer the questions of your children. The more we hide information from them in such important matters - the more we endanger them.
