Some of you may have heard of a new game sweeping the internet called Blue Whale. Several schools have already sent out information warning parents and students of the dangers of the game. Originating in Russia and spreading across Europe and into the US it encourages players to dare one another over 50 days eventually resulting in the death of the player due to suicide. Having three children we decided to talk to our children about the new game. It wasn’t really anything they hadn’t heard before, only talk to people you know, don’t accept dares and so on.
We try to ensure that all three are safe online, they like, like most children their age looking at Youtube but none of them are old enough to access their own accounts for other social media. This is also true of Youtube but Imp, who shows little interest in anything is determined to be a professional YouTuber, (apparently this is a legitimate career option now!) To that aim I set him up a channel on my google account on the proviso I saw and approved any videos he wanted to post. This seemed to be working OK until he stopped asking me for approval. I presumed he had just got bored and moved onto the next obsession.
This was until we realised he had circumvented our security measures. About nine months ago a certain app entitled Pokemon go was launched, we were in Southend and the trainer accounts weren’t loading so we set up three google accounts that we password protected and only myself and Mr T had the passwords, so far so good! Pokemon heaven and the kids were still unable to access all that google had to offer! That was until they worked out that they could get the computer to fill in the password for them and then change it – which they did and then they could upload their own videos – which they did!
Luckily we are fairly vigilant and we realised what was happening. This meant that we could keep an eye on what they were doing so that is exactly what we did. Their videos consisted of singing, scootering, and talking about various games they enjoyed playing – all fairly innocent. Yesterday Imp and Pixie made a video of themselves singing one of their favourite songs, again innocent. They were delighted that 2 hours after they had posted it, it had 9 views and a couple of comments, one of them a compliment on their singing ability!
They were talking about a new video they wanted to make which involved a dare they had received, for me this sent alarm bells ringing so I asked to see the comment. It was a classic ‘grooming’ comment! It started with a compliment and asked them to click onto a video and complete a dare. I clicked on the profile and there was a standard background, a picture of a girl around Pixies age and a tagline which could belong to anyone! There was only one video posted despite claiming to be a channel set up for this girl and her brother.
I watched the video, it wasn’t a ‘dodgy’ video but involved a gymnastics move that anyone could perform, the two people in the video were not able to be identified from the video. The poster wanted Imp to copy the move carried out in the video and post his own version allegedly for a surprise for her sister who also ‘loved’ their video!! Worse Imp had agreed to do this (luckily he had misread this and presumed he just had to watch the video rather than record one of his own!) and the person had then chased up his own version saying they needed it quickly. For me this was a clear example of someone seeing if Imp would follow orders, record and post a video and do it quickly.
Immediately we shut down his channel and have since deleted all of his videos, he is now back under my channel with everything being pre-approved and passcode on the computer disabled so he cannot bypass this time. (we are learning too!) We checked back today on the channel the dare had come from, as due to our suspicions we didn’t want anyone else to be caught out and we were unsurprised to find that the channel had disappeared and was no longer available! Pointing out to the children that they could have been taking to anyone, anywhere who could use their videos to find out information about them and then get them on side doing dares and pretending to be their friends, complimenting them was the first step to getting them under their control shook them up a bit, but in my opinion not enough. They still don’t seem to appreciate that we have been trying to keep them safe and that we are not being mean by not letting them have access to social media, there is a reason for it and the reason is they cannot tell the difference between real people and people who might want to hurt them!
It is scary to realise that wherever you go the internet is with us these days. Filters are helpful but as we discovered kids can find short cuts to get around the security designed to keep them safe and the danger becomes more pronounced. Immediately that I saw the post I felt that there was something not quite right about it but the children were oblivious, carried away with the fact that someone liked their video and might subscribe they were desperate to please and it is easy to see how people can easily get themselves into trouble, when they might be relatively sensible and level headed in reality. Maybe the instant fame and desperation to be loved is partly to blame but I too must accept responsibility, Imp and Pixie have now been given even greater restrictions and less device time to ensure that I can keep track of what they are doing. Hpops is approaching the magic 13 where she can legitimately access social media but she too has been told she will only be able to have accounts on platforms where she is willing for me to follow her and see what she is sharing and posting, because if she is willing to share with the internet then she should be happy for me to see it too! I thought we were being safe – in the matter of hours we saw how quickly the situation can change! Moral of the story, watch the kids, make sure you know what they are posting and to where and anything suspicious shut it down and report it. There are lots of dangers out there and this was one of them, thankfully – this time we are safe and hoping that when it sinks in it will help the children make better decisions going forward.
