[kictanet] Blue Whale info

Sun May 14 18:24:48 EAT 2017

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for the comprehensive article. Reading your article, i see
the need for stakeholders from the medical fraternity to engage in
Internet Governance discussions at a higher level. As we celebrate the
benefits that the Internet and World Wide Web have brought to us, we
need to equally confront the challenges it is bringing along in a
pragmatic manner, all stakeholders have a role in this . I see this as
an interesting subject for discussion during the forthcoming Internet
Governance Forum in July.

Best Regards

On 5/14/17, Andrew Alston via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
> As many of you have seen, Liquid Telecom came out opposing this “ban” on the
> basis that firstly, there is no application to ban – and secondly – you
> cannot “ban” individual tweets or social media posts and make ISP’s
> responsible for them – it is impractical and entirely impossible for any ISP
> to selectively filter against specific posts on a social media site without
> banning the entire social media site – and banning the likes of twitter,
> Facebook, Instagram etc would be entirely stupid and cause riots.
>
> Now, let me add a few things – because I did a LOT of research into this –
> what follows in this email is detailed and I apologise for the length of
> what I’m sharing below but for anyone attempting to understand the nature of
> this game and understand why what is being said about it is improbable –
> there is important background information here.  Secondly – I can state that
> I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist – however – over the years I have
> acted in the role of councillor (and have some training in that regard) and
> have interacted with certain communities at great length.  So, am I an
> expert? Probably not – but what follows is based on the research I have done
> and the conversations that I have over the last 20 odd years of interactions
> with online and offline communities where certain behaviours are the norm
> rather than the exception.
>
> Firstly – the concept behind this game has shown up before – in a slightly
> different form – in a fictional Hollywood film called Nerve which was
> released in 2016.   To quote my research report that I drew up on this:
>
>
> In the film Nerve, users play a game of dare against each other, for money.
> The film has two sets of people, the watchers and the players – and
> throughout the film the dares given get more and more extreme and dangerous,
> as does the money resulting from the completion of the dare.  The dare
> related sequences in the film culminate with the two final players left in
> the game being dared to murder each other.
>
> Secondly – in my view on if this exists or not – the idea of an online
> “digital dare” game that may or may not exist – it’s entirely possible, and
> it wouldn’t be hard for someone to start one if it doesn’t – that being said
> – you’d have to find people to play it and spread it – again – not
> impossible.  However, there is no proof that this game exists as stated in
> various articles – just a bunch of supposition.  But in the research that I
> did, while not proof, there *ARE* indications (let’s call it circumstantial
> evidence) that an online form of self-harm dare game does exist – however –
> the point of it culminating in suicide – that I could find no evidence of
> that whatsoever.
>
> Thirdly – most self-harm is committed as a coping mechanism – a way to deal
> with emotional pain in a physical way and a way to remove feelings of
> disassociation and numbness.  This is well documented and there is plenty of
> evidence to back this up. To associate progressive self-harm with
> culmination in suicide simply does not make any sense and doesn’t track the
> data that I’ve seen and spent so much time looking at.
>
> Forth – This is a medical issue – and I would argue strongly that much of
> what could result in the existence of something like this resolves around
> stigmas associated with self-injury, both within the medical fraternity and
> in the general population.  The simple fact is – that having spoken to many
> who engage in this behaviour – they go online looking for help often to stop
> – because approaches to the medical fraternity are rebuffed – strongly.  I
> know of at least 10 incidents where individuals who had cut themselves were
> refused anaesthetic in british NHS hospitals when seeking treatment – and
> many more in other health systems around the world – because the doctors
> themselves said it was attention seeking and if the person can face the pain
> of injury they can face the pain of treatment (bizarre – but it happens –
> frequently).
>
> What this results in is the fact that people who are already pre-disposed to
> self-harm and to suicidal ideation do not seek help from professionals –
> they seek it online – which leaves them exposed to predatory influences
> which can lead them down very dangerous paths.  This however indicates
> significant problems with education and the handling of complex
> psychological issues within the medical community.  It does not indicate the
> need for knee jerk reactions to ban things which cannot be proven to exist.
>
> Fifth – and this relates to the fourth point above – there is a belief that
> self-harm and even suicide attempts that are unsuccessful are a means of
> attention seeking and sometimes as a cry for help – which also explains why
> they are so ignored and stigmatized.  However, again, this is inaccurate in
> the extreme.  The majority of people who engage in this behaviour do
> everything they can to hide what they are doing outside of forums where
> like-minded individuals congregate to support each other and to find
> solutions to stopping.  This again, leads people to go online to find help,
> which can lead to significant issues.
>
> Where I do however see a problem occurring in a game such as this is that
> self-harm is an addictive behaviour.  This is medical – many people who
> engage in this behaviour will speak of a high – which is induced by the
> flood of endorphins as a result of the injury.  Effectively there are many
> who feel no pain during an act of self-harm and it can in fact invoke a
> feeling of euphoria.  The danger from this comes that if a game does exist
> that encourages vulnerable people to start down the path of self-harm you
> may be introducing people to what is a destructive addition that could haunt
> them for many years and in many cases is an escalating behaviour that can
> result in *accidental* death.  That is *NOT* to say that it is suicidal in
> nature.
>
> However, even with that said – I argue that this is not a technical issue –
> it is not an issue for a film and publication board to solve – it is not an
> issue for ISP’s to solve – it is a medical education issue, and the
> solutions here are found in sensitizing the medical community to the issues
> at hand, and working out treatment programs to treat people who suffer from
> NSSID (non suicidal self-injury disorder, as defined in the DSM IV).
> Banning such a thing is impractical and impossible – it is not an
> application – it is a digital game of dare – and since you cannot filter
> individual tweets and Instagram posts – it cannot really be stopped in a
> technical manner.
>
> What we really need to ask is – why there is such limited medical help
> available to individuals and why society is so stigmatized against the very
> things that would allow such games to exist in the first place.  I actually
> went searching – I could not find anywhere in Kenya that offers dialectical
> behaviour therapy for example, which is the de-facto therapy method used to
> treat both NSSI-D and Borderline Personality Disorder (there is a strong and
> deep correlation between these two things, and in fact in the DSM-4 prior to
> the DSM-5 they were actually clustered as one at the same thing).
>
> What we need is for further education and dialog – not knee jerk reactions
> by people who have almost no fundamental understanding of the real issues in
> play here – because the issues in play here – are not technical – they are
> not online – they are not solvable by ISPs – they are medical – they are
> psychological – and they are a damning indictment of the state of our
> society that such little help is available that it is forcing people with
> real problems online to look for help where they may be exposed to such.
>
>
> These views are stated in my personal capacity
>
> Andrew
> From: kictanet
> [mailto:kictanet-bounces+andrew.alston=liquidtelecom.com at lists.kictanet.or.ke]
> On Behalf Of Mwendwa Kivuva via kictanet
> Sent: 14 May 2017 01:04
> To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>
> Cc: Mwendwa Kivuva <Kivuva at transworldafrica.com>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Blue Whale info
>
> 'Blue Whale': But Nechama Brodie - the head of Tri-Fact training and
> research at Africa Check - says there is nothing to suggest such an app or
> website exists. "What we've seen - and this is a pattern that gets repeated
> over and over again - is that sometimes viral stories that came out of
> someone's imagination, that were completely fictional, become real over time
> because we've invested so much interest in them. So it didn't exist before
> but not it exists as a concept." She says the information on Blue Whale fits
> a "very classic profile of typical hoaxes and scares that we see around
> vulnerable populations and around teenagers in particular."
> http://m.ewn.co.za/2017/05/11/blue-whale-a-new-online-suicide-game-targeting-teens
>
>
>
> Although certain game groups on social media have been accused of promoting
> suicide, they have not been found to have directly caused an uptick in young
> people taking their own lives.
> http://www.snopes.com/blue-whale-game-suicides-russia/
>
> ______________________
> Mwendwa Kivuva, Nairobi, Kenya
> twitter.com/lordmwesh<http://twitter.com/lordmwesh>
>
>
> On 13 May 2017 at 12:50, Mark Elkins via kictanet
> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>>
> wrote:
> Here is an update on the Blue Whale stuff that was in local news in
> South Africa
>
> http://m.ewn.co.za/2017/05/11/blue-whale-a-new-online-suicide-game-targeting-teens
>
> --
> Mark James ELKINS  -  Posix Systems - (South) Africa
> mje at posix.co.za<mailto:mje at posix.co.za>       Tel: +27.128070590  Cell:
> +27.826010496
> For fast, reliable, low cost Internet in ZA: https://ftth.posix.co.za
>
>
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Barrack O. Otieno
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