Pay attention to online activities

My son loves a good dare or challenge. He would climb a tall tree, roll from one end of the school's playground to the next, stuff a whole pack of chewing gum into his mouth, all on a dare. So when I heard of the Momo online challenge I became very concerned because he, like many young children and teenagers, spend a lot of time playing online games and watching YouTube videos. The Momo icon has allegedly been appearing as a mod (short for modification) in popular online video games such as Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto 5, as well as in the middle of Peppa Pig videos and Fortnite. And although a few days ago fact-checking website Snopes deemed the challenge a hoax, and some theorists have claimed it is being run by hackers who are looking for personal information, the distress it has caused many children has indelibly left its mark on me, and I'm almost certain, many other parents.

Momo, also called Mother Bird, is described as a WhatsApp suicide challenge and has sparked global concern by parents, teachers and guardians. It purportedly features an avatar of a woman with dark hair, pale skin and oversized eyes, who sends young people images and instructions on how to harm themselves and others, with suicide being the end game in order to meet face to face with Mother Bird. The avatar was initially believed to be a work by Japanese artist Midori Hayashi, but was later revealed to actually be a sculpture created by Japanese special effects company Link Factory and displayed at a Tokyo gallery. A report from The Independent said the Momo challenge began being shared online in August 2016, and neither the company nor Hayashi had anything to do with it.

"The story began circulating when reports emerged that a girl, aged 12, and a boy, aged 16, killed themselves in northeastern Colombia in September after receiving Momo messages. Local media at the time reported that the teenage boy knew the girl and passed the game to her before killing himself. She was reportedly found hanged two days later," said a report from theweek.co.uk. There were also several newspaper articles that claimed the deaths of 130 teenagers in Russia had been linked to the Momo challenge. The game is reported to have started in Mexico, where players were challenged to communicate on WhatsApp with Momo, according to the Computer Crime Investigation Unit of the State of Tabasco, Mexico.

When I raised the subject with #1 son, he was very much aware of the avatar but clueless about the challenge. "I've seen it (the avatar) before on YouTube and it really creeped me out, so I just turned off the video," he said, giving a full description of Momo and how the YouTuber had claimed she had taken a photo of him while he was inside his house and sent it to him via WhatsApp. He actually began freaking out when we discussed the details of the challenge. "Mom, I'm scared. What if Momo gets into our house?" But when I explained that she couldn't really do that because it is logistically impossible he became a bit relaxed. "But who in their right mind would want to kill themselves to meet that ugly Mother Bird? Anyway, you know where I'm sleeping tonight eh," he informed me. I was not surprised in the least when two blankets, four pillows, a book, a wallet with a wad of dollar bills, Spider Man and Black Widow, a container with slime, and Paten (don't ask) all found their way into my bed, where they will lodge until Mama Bear decides to evict them.

Hoax or not, though, the Momo challenge, as distasteful as it is, has a silver lining -- it serves as a reminder for parents to pay attention to their children's online interactions and offers a great opportunity to reinforce the importance of Internet safety.