As police and school officials continue to issue warnings about the pervasive online “Momo Challenge” rumoured to be targeting young people, a former Victoria cop turned social media safety advocate is pointing the finger squarely at parents for spreading panic and misinformation.
Darren Lauer tours local schools educating teachers and students about staying safe online. He says he’s been contacted “hundreds of times” this week about the disturbing meme that suggests there’s a cryptic online video that encourages children to harm themselves.
While it remains an open question whether any such video exists or ever did, Lauer says the fear that the phenomenon has generated is very real. But it’s not coming from students.
“The content of the Momo Challenge in and of itself is not wrong. The hoax is the propagation of it by parents who are fanning the flames thinking that this is causing all these issues,” he says.
“A lot of the teens at the middle schools and high schools are laughing at the parent panic and moral panic that’s going on because they see it for what it is — it’s a meme.”
On Wednesday, the superintendent of the Sooke School District told CTV Vancouver Island that he has been receiving several calls and emails from concerned parents about the Momo Challenge.
"We're still trying to understand what it is fully,” said superintendent Scott Stinson. “It's not something that is a school-initiated thing, but obviously the impact of these external videos have an impact on the educational environment."
The meme itself is nothing new.
“This is something that’s been around now for just about two years,” Lauer says. “It started in Europe and it’s now moved over here to North America and it is spreading like wildfire right now right across social media — especially in parent forums, where they’re talking about this challenge.”
Lauer says that while concern about the social media meme isn’t affecting older students per se, there is still concern it could be harming the younger crowd.
“When the elementary [school] kids, who don’t have that critical thinking, see this happening, it’s very scary emotionally and psychologically,” he says. “This thing is a hoax [but] the content of it isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, the content is scary.”
Victoria high school student Josh Decouto agrees, saying that while he hasn’t seen the rumoured video, he says seen the image purported to be captured from it.
“It’s quite scary,” Decouto says. “But I’m 15 so it wouldn’t really scare me. But I can definitely see how people younger than me, like say ages seven or eight, they could definitely see that and get some nightmares.”
As for the actual existence of the elusive video that’s said to be encouraging self-harm, Lauer is agnostic.
“We can’t find it,” he says. “I’m not saying it’s not there.”
What certainly isn’t there, he says, is any documented case of the video inciting serious self-harm. “There’s not one credible reported case where any student or young person has taken their lives for it.”
