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Lebanon has joined a growing list of countries that have warned their citizens about two online games that allegedly lead children to self-harm or even suicide. The Internal Security Forces’ Anti-Cybercrime and Intellectual Property Rights Bureau announced Thursday that it had already received complaints about the games and strongly advised the Lebanese public against playing “Blue Whale” or “Mariam,” listing their potential dangers.
This comes after the UAE attorney general Wednesday ordered the games and a number of other online gaming sites to be blocked due to their alleged adverse impact on youth behavior, according to Emirati state news agency WAM.
Last month, Egypt’s attorney general also ordered the blocking of “Blue Whale” and similar games that “lead to suicide or crimes,” Egyptian state media Ahram Online reported.
While Lebanon hasn’t announced an official ban, the ISF said it issued its warning after “receiving a number of testimonies from citizens about [their] children showing signs of apathy and attempting suicide as a result” of using these games, an ISF statement said Thursday.
An ISF source told The Daily Star that the games have become a growing topic of conversation among students at some Lebanese schools, and noted that some cases of children badly affected by them had been reported. “There have been cases [of children] who had some problems [as a result], but they didn’t reach the point of committing suicide, thank God,” the source said.
“Blue Whale” reportedly emerged in 2016 in Russia, but its origins and exact nature are poorly understood and reports of its connection to youth suicides remain unconfirmed.
The BBC reported in 2017 that the game was “apparently being used by an alleged online pressure group, which is said to assign a curator to individual participants who then encourage them to complete tests over the course of 50 days.”
Among the tasks set by the “administrator” or “curator” is asking players to carve a “whale” symbol on their arms, which they are then ordered to photograph.
“When someone begins the game and they advance in it bit by bit, they develop a sense of loyalty to continue and they become curious to see what will happen in later stages,” Fayad Atwi, a security expert at the Tyre-based tech company Semicolon, told The Daily Star.
“When the player carves a whale symbol onto his arms, they send the photo in order to prove to the [administrator that they have completed the task] and this will then open the next level for him,” Atwi added.
Players are also allegedly requested to wake up at dawn and watch a video that includes “weird” music designed to leave them in a gloomy state of mind. The final stage of the challenge is when the player is eventually challenged to commit suicide.
“In the final stage there would different ways to commit suicide, it depends on how the administrator sees the player,” Atwi noted.
“They might tell the player to slit their wrist or throw themselves from a top of a building. There is a direct contact between the two.”
“Mariam,” too, constitutes a threat to players, the ISF said.
The mobile game – created by Saudi app developer Salman al-Harbi – asks the user multiple-choice questions. “It motivates children and teenagers to harm themselves, in addition to affecting their way of thinking,” the ISF statement said.
The basic narrative of “Mariam” centers on a lost child who the player must guide home by providing answers to specific questions that potentially endanger their privacy, the statement said.
Dr. Tania Bosqui, clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the American University of Beirut, said that for children and adolescents to engage in self-harm, this would generally have to originate from a deeper issue making them susceptible to the games. “Research has shown ... that violence in media has a small but significant impact on child and adolescent behavior, but it is only a very small part of the picture, with a greater influence of social adversity and family conflict,” Bosqui told The Daily Star.
She noted that while she was aware of these games, she had yet to come across related clinical cases first hand.
“I suspect that the risk of self-harm and suicide due to the sole influence of a game or app is extremely low. Adolescents who engage in risky or unhealthy online activity like this are likely to have pre-existing difficulties and may be vulnerable to suggestibility and victimization,” she said.
Bosqui recommended that parents maintain an open conversation with their children about the difficulties they may be facing and be sensitive to their children’s needs and challenges. “Providing support for adolescents for any underlying emotional distress is likely to be helpful in preventing or minimizing self-harming behaviors,” she added.
Source: The Daily Star
