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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Keep yourself away from MomoChallenge

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MUSCAT, Aug 15 - The Information Technology Authority (ITA) of Oman has warned of the dangers of some harmful games known as ‘The Death Challenge,’ sometimes called ‘Blue Whale’ or ‘Momo.’ These are games that appeared on the WhatsApp application and social media throughout the world, especially in Spain and Latin America, and then moved to the rest of the world, including Arab countries.


The centre said that these games are based on the idea of sending mysterious messages to the victims and then challenge the participants to carry out dangerous tasks that may lead to suicide.


Victims who refuse to execute orders might be threatened and blackmailed with photos and personal information, which is accessed through the phone number associated with social media or through some of the malicious programmes that have been downloaded to the victims’ phones through the links sent.

The ITA advises to follow a number of guidelines to avoid being victims of such games, including not opening anonymous or suspicious links even if they come from close people, not to communicate with anonymous numbers and emails, need to protect personal and financial information and not to share them in the social media, as well as non-link to unsecured Internet networks or public networks and not to respond or interact with unknown contacts and to inform the security authorities immediately after being trapped by cybercriminals.


Social media has certainly given rise to a number of ‘challenges’ that has been affecting a large number of unrelated people. While few challenges could be harmless, most of them are highly dangerous.


Not even a year has passed since the Blue Whale challenge subsided, a new challenge has been spreading in the Internet, encouraging suicides among teenagers.


A 12-year-old girl from Argentina recently died after participating in a terrifying challenge called the momo challenge.


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