The mother of little Archie Battersbee, Hollie Dance, believes that at least 82 children have died because of the popular TikTok challenge, Blackout Challenge or blackout game.
According to the first interview he gave for the Daily Mail After the death of her son, Hollie said that social networks have to take the deadly challenge seriously, because if they do not, they will never be able to stop the harmful content that is on the internet.
It’s out there and people are setting up our kids to do these challenges, it’s disgusting. People, often adults, not children, who are demonstrating these challenges are sick.
In addition to this, Archie’s mother says she recently found footage of a man in his 30s attempting a similar challenge, where he places something around his neck and pulls hard. Because of this, Hollie thinks that the police should act to stop this type of challenge, since he is a grown man who demonstrates this “trick” to children.
It is worth mentioning that the government has been requested to act faster regarding these types of online challenges to prevent more cases like Archie’s from happening again.
For his part, in statements to the Maila spokesperson for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport assured that the online safety bill will force technology companies to protect children from viral dangers and, if this requirement is not met, they will have to pay fines or even your sites will be blocked.
Despite the fact that this challenge has claimed many lives since 2008, the year in which it emerged, Archie’s case has shocked the world, because after spending five months in a coma, due to his brain death and the legal battle that his parents submitted against the hospital so as not to disconnect him from his life support, has made us reflect on the access of children and adolescents to social networks and the attention that as parents we must give to what our children see and try to do.
It is worth mentioning that the platform already has a demand for this type of challenge. However, the course of the process has not been confirmed.