The Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) has banned the now infamous Blue Whale online game, which has been making headlines both locally and internationally for allegedly driving teenagers to commit suicide.

KFCB’s decision comes after a sixteen-year-old teenager committed suicide in Nairobi’s Kamkunji estate in what preliminary police investigations attribute to the Blue Whale game.

“Our attention has been drawn to a social media game that is being used to manipulate children to perform dangerous activities through a fifty day series of traumatizing tasks. This includes watching horrific movies and inflicting harm on oneself”, KFCB said in a statement.

“The board had ordered the immediate withdrawal of the game from all social media sites in Kenya and asked all internet service providers to ensure it’s not accessible” the statement further states.

Killer Blue Whale Challenge

When one signs up for the Blue Whale Challenge, an administrator or curator is assigned who then gives a person a series of bizarre ‘tasks’ to complete over time and at the end of the challenge the person ‘wins’ the game by committing suicide.

Some of the tasks in the Blue Whale challenge include;

• Carve with a razor “f57” on your hand; send a photo to the curator.
• Wake up at 4.20 a.m. and watch psychedelic and scary videos that curator sends you.
• Cut your arm with a razor along your veins, but not too deep, only 3 cuts, send a photo to the curator
• Go to a bridge, stand on the edge
• Every day you wake up at 4:20 a.m., watch horror videos, listen to music that “they” send you, make 1 cut on your body per day, talk “to a whale”.
• Jump off a high building. Take your life.

KFCB chairman, Ezekiel mutual has also said that anyone found allowing children to play the challenge will be arrested and prosecuted in line with the law, particularly the Film And Stage Plays Act Cap 222.