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It\u2019s just an image on a App.\u00a0 They used a Japanese doll artist\u2019s rendition of a horror figure, a girl that supposedly killed herself and is apparently haunting those who live. \u00a0Ah, who knows.\u00a0 What is more important is she contacts young persons on the internet and asks them to download her. \u00a0\u00a0Then she gives them instructions over the course of their interactions trying to gain information about them, or their parents, or do a variety of dangerous self-harm tasks, she makes bullying threats, shames them, then talks them into killing themselves.\u00a0 It\u2019s called the \u201cMOMO SUICIDE CHALLENGE.\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong>Mostly \u2018tweens and young teenagers play with her online.\u00a0 My 11-year old knows about it.\u00a0 Her friends do.\u00a0 Most parents do not.\u00a0 Many cops do not, YET!<\/span><\/p>\n The Blue Whale Hoax started in Russia.\u00a0 It was the same sort of thing, a person interrupts you from Facebook or some other App and asks you to join them by giving them your phone number or by connecting as friends.\u00a0 Then they slowly give you directions, Blue Whale had over 50 posts fed to you once a day, ending in asking you to kill yourself.\u00a0 People have tied this to suicides around the world, but no one has evidence of a direct causal element.\u00a0 Asking pre-teen kids to kill themselves \u2013 does it get any sicker than this?<\/span><\/p>\n Unfortunately, this is the start of the newest trend on the internet.\u00a0 It is an international trend and comes in many shapes and sizes.\u00a0 For a while, kids all over were worried about the 3 am witching hour and waking up at 3 am.\u00a0 They started with talking kids out of the houses and to meet them somewhere, now they want to tell them to kill themselves.\u00a0 Sickness and perversion knows no limits.\u00a0 And although most kids consider it just a fantasy, some don\u2019t.\u00a0 Some look up their parent\u2019s financial information and give it out, or give out their address, or a phone number so they can have their house looked up when they are alone.\u00a0 Some got in cars and ended up in a drainage ditch somewhere in another county.\u00a0 Now, some will kill themselves in their homes while the parents are thinking they are in their rooms playing Minecraft.<\/span><\/p>\n What possible thrill could someone get from making a 6th<\/sup> grader kill themselves?\u00a0 What causes someone to be so sick and perverted?\u00a0\u00a0 Remember, go back to my principle of \u201cno unitary cause of mass behavior.\u201d\u00a0 There really isn\u2019t a unitary cause for this behavior in every person out there.\u00a0 I sit in my office suite sometimes and listen to the people yelling and fighting with each other in some of the marital therapy rooms, and I think couldn\u2019t listen to that all day, everyday.\u00a0 (I don\u2019t allow people to fight in my therapy office.)\u00a0 Some kids grow up listening to that 24-7.\u00a0 I go on the street and I see people treat each other with extreme disrespect over something as simple as a parking spot.\u00a0 I hear Hollywood stars suggesting violence is the way to take their protests to the next level, or protests taking down a statue that get people run over.\u00a0 I see on TV people in black hoods destroying businesses that someone had worked their life to establish over a sign on the door supporting a political candidate or a decision by a court. \u00a0Do those people just walk?\u00a0 Many times!\u00a0 We are the aggregate of experience in our lives and if we see people \u201cget away with\u201d causing damage to others, and we haven\u2019t had such a good upbringing ourselves, maybe the leap to causing anonymous pain is not so far.\u00a0 So, discussing how people go down the path to hurting the innocent may not be fruitful.<\/span><\/p>\n So, how do we stop it?!\u00a0 In Russia they found the guy who started the Blue Whale Hoax.\u00a0 They had a major dragnet and advertised when he was caught. \u00a0He may not see the light of day again.\u00a0 We have to be more willing to lay down hard punishments and take people out of society who want to hurt others.\u00a0 We have lost our news channels to report what is going on in the world. \u00a0They are either a bunch of slanted opinions or the disaster news using hyperbole more that good solid reporting.\u00a0 We need the news back to warn us of those things that can hurt our kids. \u00a0I don\u2019t mean to advertise, but Snopes did wonders for exposing \u201cUrban Myths.\u201d\u00a0 These challenges are just Urban Myths that spread on the internet.\u00a0 We need to find a Snopes for ridiculous and dangerous challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n First, we have to talk to our kids and tell them about these things.\u00a0 Exposure of their ridiculous nature is essential.\u00a0 We need to have fliers in school and the old internet needs to be used to expose these hoaxes as hoaxes.\u00a0 Some worry that by telling kids about it we are spreading the rumor, but that is a wrong way of thinking.\u00a0 Spread the word that anyone found with these needs to be exposed and told about.\u00a0 The message gets out.<\/span><\/p>\n