Blue Whale Challenge needs to be tackled at national level

The order by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology directing major Internet companies like Google, Facebook, Instagram, Microsoft, Yahoo as well as WhatsApp to remove all links of the game called the Blue Whale Challenge comes not a moment too soon. Multiple requests — one by the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and the other by the Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi — to take steps to ban the Blue Whale Challenge underline the seriousness of the situation. There are already three reported cases of suicide, one each in MP, Maharashtra and West Bengal, which are suspected to be linked to the influence of the game.

Internationally, it has affected scores of teenagers in Russia, Saudi Arabia, the US, several countries in Europe and South America. 

The Blue Whale Challenge starts with the introduction of a person to a closed group on the Internet. Membership is achieved after a certain feat suggested by the administrator is successfully completed. Instructions range from asking a person to cause himself bodily harm to performing dangerous acts like standing on the ledge of a building. While each of these instructions is criminal enough, the last-stage instructions to take one’s own life are clearly abetment to commit suicide. 

Russia has been worst affected.  With around 130 suicides allegedly linked to this game, in June 2017, Russia passed a law. As per this law, inducing minors to commit suicide through social media is now a criminal act punishable with six years imprisonment. Russia also arrested Philipp Budeikin, a psychology student who was expelled from the university. Budeikin allegedly started this game to rid society of those who, according to him, have no value. Budeikin admitted to have incited 16 girls to commit suicide. However, even after Budeikin’s arrest, the spread of the game has not stopped.  

In the Indian context, abetment to commit suicide is an offence that attracts a punishment of 10 years of imprisonment and a fine. The main aspects of abetment are that suicide must have been committed and there should be an instigation which is proximate and has a clear nexus to the eventual suicide. In the Blue Whale Challenge, instructions given by the administrator to victims are clear and graphic. Victims take these instructions and act accordingly. In these cases, instigation by the administrator is clearly proximate and is connected to the eventual suicide.  

The problem, however, is tracing the administrator. In the Blue Whale Challenge, administrators use the dark web. Communications in the dark web use encryption technology, which routes users’ data through a large number of intermediate servers, protecting their identity and guaranteeing anonymity.  

While administrators may be difficult to trace, Blue Whale Challenge groups are known and pass through the Internet service provider (ISP) network. In this case, ISPs cannot deny their knowledge as the entire world now knows about the game. Immunity provided to ISPs by section 79 of the IT Act may not be available to them in these cases. ISPs can, however, still prove that on their part, they have done due diligence to prevent such traffic to claim immunity. This, too, given the circumstances, may be difficult to uphold.

With ISPs clearly in the know of the traffic, which carries sinister instructions of the game, it may not be required to petition the Centre to ban the Blue Whale Challenge. States themselves can use provisions of the IT Act against ISPs to block this traffic. ISPs are mandated to respond within 36 hours of such request, as per Information Technology (Intermediary guidelines) Rules 2011. 

Finally, though Kerala has acted in a proactive manner by calling for the ban, this issue needs to be addressed at a national level in an immediate and a far more comprehensive manner. A game which leads a person to commit suicide is hardly a game. Influencing vulnerable kids to commit suicide by guiding them through criminal instructions is a heinous crime and needs solutions which include criminal action besides banning of the criminal challenge.

The author is an IPS officer, currently ADG in Maharashtra, and is a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP)