Content teens consume: To censor or not to censor

It first popped up on the class WhatsApp chat a few weeks ago.

The mother of one of Aaliya’s classmate posted a link to an article about a Spanish teenager who was hospitalised after playing something called the ‘Blue Whale suicide game’. For those like me, who’ve never wandered the shadowy realms of social media, Blue Whale is an online game that targets teenagers and gives them increasingly nasty challenges to be completed over 50 days. Many of these involve self-harm — stuff like cutting your arm with a razor or poking yourself with a needle. The final challenge is to commit suicide.

“But who on earth”, you might well ask, “would take such an extreme step because of a silly online game? Does it even exist, or is it just an urban legend?”

Well, if the Russian media is to be believed, more than 100 teenage girls in Russia have jumped from terraces or leapt in the path of oncoming trains after playing this ugly game. When Philip Bedeikin — apparently one of the brains behind this game — was caught last week, he told the police that he was cleansing society and getting rid of “biological waste”.

Little wonder then that many parents of our class chat reacted with alarm. During the discussion, one mother remarked, “You guys should also watch 13 Reasons Why on Netflix. Not for kids. Just for us.”

The warning came too late, of course. When it comes to things online, kids are usually light-years ahead of us. I hadn’t heard of the show, but Aaliya certainly had. “Everybody in my class is watching it,” she shrugged. “I’m not, because I don’t like scary stuff. But some boys in my class are obsessed. It’s all they talk about.”

“What is it about?” I asked. This was before the spate of articles in newspapers, so I had no clue. I imagined it was another one of those slightly inappropriate mates-and-dates sagas.

Aaliya’s answer chilled me. 13 Reasons Why is the story of a teenager who commits suicide. On a bunch of cassettes, she records the 13 reasons that pushed her to take this extreme step. Each tape outlines one reason and is sent to a specific friend as an act of revenge. “You were mean to me, so I’ve gone and killed myself. Now stew in your guilt. So there.”

The thought that a TV serial about a teenager committing suicide — packaged as a messy but satisfying solution to all of life’s problems — is being marketed to other vulnerable youngsters is appalling. The thought that it can so easily infiltrate the pretty, pastel refuge I’ve tried to create for my own daughters is terrifying.

Once a child has a device, it’s difficult to control where they go with it. During the brouhaha over the `Wannacry’ ransomware this weekend, my husband said over and over again, “Tell the girls to be careful about opening attachments. Tell them not to click on random stuff.”

I reinforced this message, but knew it was a waste of words. The present lot of teens come equipped with a special function  — one that allows them to ignore adults, but compels them to accept everything that shows up on  their screens. They really seem to believe that one video left unclicked, one message left unseen, and they might miss the answer to life.

So how does one help one’s teenager navigate these dark alleys? To figure where to venture and what to believe? I’ve never believed in censorship — remember, I was a khadi kurta-clad journalist, who went on peace marches, back in the days — so I can’t bring myself to put restrictions on her phone.  

Instead, I ask my 13-year-old whether she’s encountered unpleasant content during her forays into Instagram and Snapchat. Turns out she has. “It starts out as harmless,” Aaliya explains, “On Instagram I sometimes follow these cute DIY sites on ‘How To Fold Napkins’ and the like. And suddenly they start linking to inappropriate or scary stuff. Sometimes you can’t help it and you see things.”

“Does it bother you?” I ask, uneasy.

“Sometimes a lot,” she admits, describing a short film she stumbled upon about a girl who disappeared in the forest. “There was nothing inappropriate about it, but it really freaked me out.“

“Next time, be a bit careful,” I suggest. “And promise you will tell me if you stumble upon anything that you feel is wrong or frightening.”

Aaliya agrees — and I feel that in some small way I’ve armed her to battle the monsters she might unwittingly meet.