Almost a decade ago, as ‘Blue Whale’ sent shockwaves across India, SC, HC had weighed in on dangers online
The game was the rage in India in 2017-18. After several suicides were allegedly linked to the Blue Whale challenge and petitions filed against it, courts had issued directions to protect children
The open window through which the sisters allegedly fell to their deaths. (Express Photo by Neetika Jha) Following the deaths of three sisters in Ghaziabad by suicide, initial reports attributed to Ghaziabad Police sources suggested that their parents objected to their “excessive online gaming”. Police later clarified that while the sisters were obsessed with “Korean culture” and appeared to be living in a Korean fantasy world online, there was no angle of online gaming in the tragedy.
Nearly a decade before the tragedy, the Supreme Court and Madras High Court had weighed in on the dangers of online task-based games such as the Russian ‘Blue Whale Challenge’, and the discussion also addressed some broad questions about the trend of young people living in a parallel universe online, disconnected from the real world.
THE MADRAS HIGH COURT issued a slew of directions “in larger public interest” to the Centre and Tamil Nadu government on September 12, 2017. The HC asked CERT-In, the national nodal agency responding to incidents relating to online security, to collect digital devices used by the purported victims of the game, to conduct digital forensic analyses to locate the source of the game and its administrators, and to direct Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to remove all related links and hashtags being circulated on social media and the dark net.
The court also said that the government “must seek cooperation and use its diplomatic relationship with Russia to block the URLs/links related to Blue Whale game”. It directed the government to initiate penal action against culprits in India, and to consider amending the relevant laws and rules of the digital space to ensure intermediaries share all requisite data with law enforcement agencies.
THE SUPREME COURT heard two PILs that alleged 100 people had died by suicide across the country while playing the game that involved taking on 50 self-destructive challenges, with the final step being to take one’s own life. The death challenge had spread “over the cities of our country such as Mumbai, Pune, Indore, Dehradun, Chennai and the State of Kerala, West Bengal and Assam and rest of country”, the top court was told.
In October and November 2017, the SC issued several directions, including asking Doordarshan to prepare a programme “in consultation with the Ministries of Women & Child Development and Human Resource Development to telecast educative messages/ clips of appropriate duration at the relevant time about the evil impact of Blue Whale”. The court also directed state chief secretaries to issue circulars to improve awareness among parents, educators, and in schools “about the danger such games propagate by bringing people into a trap”.
Similar PILs were filed at the time in the High Courts of Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, and Punjab and Haryana, and several states issued advisories.
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