The Momo Challenge is the latest in a series of criticisms by the mainstream media targeting internet sites and their safety, specifically concerning teens and young children.
First appearing almost a year ago, the challenge has been reported across several media outlets as having recently resurfaced. Many of these outlets, such as NBC News’ Today Show, have been providing tips for concerned parents and consulting experts on the matter.
“This is a real challenge to childhood, and it’s a completely inappropriate and disturbing message and image that is spreading virally,” said Jim Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, on the Today Show.
Fox News’ Frank Miles wrote an article titled, “Return of ‘Momo Suicide Challenge’ Sparks Fear Among Parents” and several local news stations, like WPTV News, have run pieces warning about the challenge’s dangers. This has led to posts from many parents and worried individuals like Kim Kardashian, who took to Instagram and Facebook asking YouTube to help and telling adults to “please monitor what your kids are watching.”
Despite the widespread fear of this challenge, it seems to be largely a hoax only given life by the panic caused by the supposed reporting of it. YouTube released a statement under their Twitter account saying as much, at least in regard to its own platform.
“We want to clear something up regarding the Momo Challenge,” writes a representative of YouTube on the account. “We’ve seen no recent evidence of videos promoting the Momo Challenge on Youtube.”
Facebook, the company that owns WhatsApp, which is where this challenge supposedly originated, released a statement on the matter.
“As outlined in our community standards, we don’t allow the promotion of self-injury or suicide and will remove it when reported to us,” wrote Facebook in the statement.
Security experts like the Dfndr Blog’s Jeannie Mark have called the challenge nothing more than a “social engineering scheme,” designed only to spread fear among people.
This is not the first time that media outlets have made a big deal out of a supposed challenge and caused a larger issue than what had been there in the first place. In fact, mainstream media has frequently attacked internet challenges, bringing into question the safety of websites that allow the content to become viral and whether or not teens and children can be trusted with their own personal security. These attacks do not always have solid, substantial evidence behind them.
For example, outlets like KABB Fox News, multiple local news groups like 12 News and USA Today (again) reported on a condom snorting challenge in the middle of last year. They warned parents about how their teenage kids might be in danger, listing several health problems that could result from snorting condoms.
The fact of the matter is, as pointed out by Esquire’s Sarah Rense, the vast majority of the videos depicting this challenge started in 2007 to reach its peak in 2013. The media was seemingly a little late to report on this story. They were causing panic over a concern that was essentially made up.
Some might also recall the Tide Pod Challenge. If anything, the media may have caused the trend to exist whereas it otherwise wouldn’t have. The Film Theorists on YouTube made an informative video on this matter titled, “Film Theory: The Tide Pod Challenge – EXPOSED!”
“(Mainstream media) took a small handful of jokes and videos and blew it up into a fad that suddenly had thousands of copycats,” said Matthew Patrick, better known as MatPat, the founder and primary personality of the various theorist channels that includes Film Theorists.
The data Patrick shows in his video references a spike in the quantity of Poison Control Center calls in relation to the consumption of detergent and the Tide Pod Challenge after Jan. 14, 2018. Before this date, the challenge was still a fairly minor event, even starting to die off before media started reporting more on it, giving it a new and significantly larger presence and life.
Basically, the media rekindled what was a small problem and by giving it exposure, they made it a huge problem, going from 242 Tide Pod Challenge videos on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube between Dec. 1, 2017 and Jan. 6, 2018 to 387 videos the week after to 1,502 videos the week after Jan. 14 and 1,517 videos the week after that.
The Jan. 14 date is important because this was right after when news organizations really started giving attention to the story, as Jan. 12 was when the tide released a PSA about the matter and articles on the subject were published on the subject the next day, on Jan. 13.
The Film Theorists give an incredibly in-depth description heavily backed with factual evidence in regards to this deadly problem.
Anyway, it appears that mainstream media have been reporting stories where the internet and children are responsible for these harmful challenges. They, however, either exaggerate these stories or cause them to grow from a minor event into a vast phenomenon. The Momo Challenge, Condom-Snorting Challenge and Tide Pod Challenge are all just examples of a larger problem of the media getting their reporting wrong and making internet communities suffer for it.
By Landon Allison, News Editor
allisolj17@bonaventure.edu
