It is not the first time that a challenge in social networks has been fatal for one of its participants. In this case, a 10 year old Italian babe died suffocated in Palermo, Sicily, while participated in a viral challenge proposed by the social network TikTok.
Antonella, who participated in the so-called “blackout challenge”, in the bathroom of her family home, put a belt around her neck in order to not breathe as long as possible, while recording the scene with her mobile.
The 5-year-old sister discovered the unconscious body and warned her parents. She was quickly transported to the Palermo Children’s Hospital, but did not survive.
“Blackout challenge” is the proposed game that consists of children blocking their breath until they faint. Every year it causes accidents, some fatal like this one.
The parents told the newspaper La Repubblica that another 9-year-old sister was the one who explained what happened: “Antonella was playing the choking game.”
“We didn’t know anything,” the girl’s father confessed to the newspaper. “I only knew that Antonella went to TikTok to watch videos. How to imagine that atrocity? “, He asked himself desperately.
“That my daughter, my little Antonella, dies in an extreme TikTok game, I can’t accept it!” added Angelo Sicomero, who along with his wife decided to donate their daughter’s organs so that “other children can live thanks to her” .
The Palermo prosecutor’s office opened an investigation for “incitement to suicide“.
The girl’s mobile phone was seized by investigators, who will have to determine if Antonella had contacts with other participants and if someone invited her to participate in the challenge or if you were making that video for a friend or relative.
Faced with the tragedy, the platform founded in 2016 that has 100 million users in Europe issued a statement.
“The safety of the TikTok community is our highest priority, we are at the disposal of the competent authorities to collaborate in any investigation,” they wrote.
With information from AFP.
JPE
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