Question : Blue Whale Challenge

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

(a) whether the Government has implemented any provisions in schools to prevent the effect of self-harm applications and trends such as Blue Whale Challenge on children and if so, the details thereof;
(b) whether the Government has placed any technological obstructions on such applications from trending in the online space and if so, the details thereof; and
(c) the current figure on the number of deaths caused by such applications in the country

(a): Government issued “Guidelines for Safe and Effective Use of Internet and Digital Technologies” to all CBSE schools vide circular dated. 18.08.2017. Also, Minister, Women and Child Development wrote to Principals of all schools on 31.08.2017 to take immediate steps to protect children from Blue Whale Challenge Game. National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) made an appeal for safety of children against Blue Whale Challenge Game in more than 50 newspapers in August 2017 as also uploaded on Social Media Twitter and Facebook. In order to sensitize the children, parents and teachers, NCPCR prepared poster on Dos and Don’ts on Children Stay Safe on Internet in September 2017 and published in various newspapers as well as and also uploaded on its website www.ncpcr.gov.in.

(b): Government has asked popular social media sites not to host any such dangerous online games and immediately remove the same as and when detected. It is also understood that Blue Whale Challenge game is a peer-to-peer game and there is no formal Application, website or URL available for downloading/accessing this game, thereby having little scope for technical solutions to identify or block the dangerous online games.

(c): There had been media reports about alleged suicides/attempted suicides due to Blue Whale Challenge Game. In this regard, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had constituted a Committee to investigate all cases where suicides were committed or attempted allegedly using dangerous online games like Blue Whale Challenge. The Committee findings could not establish any involvement of Blue Whale challenge game in any of incidents reported to them.

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