The 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians' star also begs YouTube to do something after the disturbing challenge appears on videos targeting children.
- Feb 28, 2019
AceShowbiz - Many parents have been made worried with the re-appearance of the infamous "Momo Challenge", which is now appearing in WhatsApp and YouTube videos targeting children. In response to this, police have issued a warning for parents to be mindful about what their children are watching on social media platform.
"Our advice is always, is to supervise the games your kids play and be extremely mindful of the video they are watching on YouTube," the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) wrote in a statement. "Ensure that the devices they have access to are restricted to age suitable content." PSNI also warned that "Momo" and other challenges are largely created by hackers looking for personal info.
The law enforcement continued, "The danger lies with your child feeling pressured to either follow the orders of ANY app via 'challenges,' or peer pressure in chat rooms and the like … More important is that your child knows not to give out personal info to ANYONE they don't know, that no one has the right to tell them to or make them do ANYTHING they don't want to."
"Momo Challenge" first went viral in 2018. It involves a creepy character named Momo instructing players to engage in escalating dangerous acts, including self-harm. Players must provide photo evidence of completing to continue the game, and if they refuse to play along, they will be "cursed." At the end of the challenge, players are tasked to take their own life and record it for the world to see.
This challenge was blamed for the death of a 12-year-old in Argentina who committed suicide and recorded in on social media.
"Momo Challenge" disappeared soon after it went viral, but now the game has resurfaced on WhatsApp and YouTube videos for children. According to report, the clip of the challenge appears midway through footage of "Fortnite", "Peppa Pig" and more content for kids "to avoid detection by adults." This, of course, worried many parents across the world, including Kim Kardashian who begged YouTube to do something about it.
However, in their statement, YouTube noted that it had not found any evidence of the challenge appearing on kids videos. "Videos encouraging harmful and dangerous are clearly against our policies, the Momo challenge included," the statement read. "Despite reports of this challenge surfacing, we haven't had any recent links flagged or shared with us from YouTube that violate our Community Guidelines."
