A five-year-old boy died last night and his mother and three-year-old sister are in serious condition when they collided with a vehicle in which five young people were traveling who were participating, according to the first investigations, in a viral challenge spread on the networks and which consists of driving uninterruptedly for 50 hours. They are new victims of absurd challenges, such as taking drugs to have hallucinations or seeing who falls asleep last after taking them or holding out longer by inhaling deodorants or insecticides. The event reopens the debate on the responsibility of these challenges, on which there is a legislative vacuum and no reliable statistics.
The accident, according to Efe, occurred on Wednesday night in the Roman suburb of Casal Palocco. The five young people were traveling in a luxury SUV that collided with a small vehicle occupied by the three members of the family who were the victims of the accident.
The five young people, four boys and a girl in their 20s, used the networks to gain popularity with recordings in luxury cars and the indications suggest that, this time, they were participating in the challenge of driving 50 hours without a break. His YouTube channel, which promotes the challenges online, has accumulated 600,000 subscribers and 152 million views since 2020.
This event reopens the debate on responsibility for the sometimes deadly consequences of viral challenges spread on the networks. Although there are no reliable statistics, the trickle of cases is constant and the legislation presents gaps on how to address them, beyond the event itself.
Gabriel González, delegate prosecutor for Computer Crime of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Seville, during the meeting on security CSI Radar, which is being held this week in the Andalusian capital, has raised: “What is done with viral challenges, what happens when an underage person suffers damage due to a thinness challenge or passing a condom through the holes of the nose or who swallows more deodorant? “You have to see if you should be penalized. In the real world, it is not the arms manufacturer who is responsible for a murder, but the one who commits it with it, ”he warns.
In these cases, González admits that, “in the criminal sphere, what is not in the Code cannot be prosecuted in this way”. “You have to go on the basis of reforms and the latest ones are aimed at introducing new crimes that are not configured as such or that do not fit perfectly into the regulation,” he says.
legal vacuum
Cecilia Danesilawyer specializing in responsibility for the use of artificial intelligence, professor at several international universities and author of The empire of algorithms (recently published by Galerna), agrees with the prosecutor in the current legislative vacuum and points out that the European proposal for artificial intelligence, within the list of unacceptable risks, will prohibit “systems used to manipulate the behavior of people”. “Imagine that I am a pervert and I want children to commit suicide, for which I use my resources as a human. But imagine that, in addition, I use a generative artificial intelligence model to help me carry it out and that model is replicated. The viralization of content on social networks also involves algorithms because they are the ones in charge of deciding absolutely everything we see.”
In this sense, Yieng Xie, a researcher at the University of Texas and author of work on social media, states that “companies of these should consider how their recommendation policies stimulate the formation of friendship ties and increase activity on the site. For example, Facebook’s suggestion features are generated by algorithms based on content in which users have previously expressed interest and actions they have taken on the platform.
Like the prosecutor, Danesi explains that, in the criminal area, “illicit conduct has to be 100% consistent. There is no room for interpretation.” In this way, if it is not contemplated in the norm, it cannot be prosecuted or judged. “In the civil area,” he adds, “yes, a reparation could be requested.”
In the case of those killed by viral challenges, the question is who: the person who creates the challenge or the platform that broadcasts it? “The person who creates the challenge,” Danesi replies, “is responsible because his conduct results in harm to another person. The main problem is the causal link. It can be argued that when creating the challenge it was never thought that it would end in death. The platform also has its responsibility because, as he explains, it must supervise the content that is disseminated, but with the current systems it is impossible to monitor everything that is published and, especially, according to the lawyer, when the challenge does not arouse suspicion. at first, but it becomes dangerous over time and is more difficult to detect.
Why do challenges go viral?
Francesc Núñez, sociologist of emotions and professor of Humanities at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) explains in a piece of information from the academic institution why these challenges are being followed up and going viral. “Many have a dimension of challenge, whether it’s competing against someone or yourself, or achieving something that requires agility, intelligence or dexterity. To the dimension that the challenge has, we add the personal stimulus, of fun and, also, of prowess”.
For UOC Psychology professor Mireia Cabero, there are three main reasons for someone to participate in a viral challenge: solidarity (in the case of challenges to raise awareness about a problem), the feeling of belonging to a group or imitation and group entertainment, since many must be done as a team, as in the case of the fatal accident in Italy.
The problem comes with dangerous challenges that put the integrity of a person or third parties at risk. “These are very well built, they work just like a game in stages”, warns Silvia Sivera, a professor at the UOC’s Department of Information Sciences and Communication. “They naturally choose a younger type of audience, especially adolescents, who organically and equally share the challenges in their networks.”
There are no statistics on these challenges. A study of the International University of La Rioja (UNIR) and the of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)determined, after surveying 417 minors from three autonomies, that one in 10 Spanish adolescents admits having carried out dangerous viral challenges.
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