French government through its Ministry of Interior, is warning citizens about a dangerous social media challenge going on in Tiktok, called Labellochallenge which is pushing mostly young people to commit suicide, AFP reports.
According to the report, the French Ministry of interior took to Twitter to give out the warnings said:
“A dangerous new social media challenge.” It is in these terms that the Ministry of the Interior qualifies the #Labellochallenge or #Jeudulabello, in a message published Friday on its Twitter account.
“Certain practices and viral trends can make social networks a dangerous playground. Be attentive and listen to the young people around you if you observe a change in behaviour,” he continues in his tweet.
At the centre of this government concern, a challenge born more than a year ago on TikTok, which seems to be experiencing a resurgence of activity on this social network popular with adolescents. Originally, one person was supposed to film themselves guessing the taste of another’s lip balm. But the rules of the game have been diverted for a morbid purpose, as Internet users describe it: users who reach the end of their tube must commit suicide.
Prevention messages
In the report by AFP, no death in connection with this worrying challenge has so far been reported by the Chinese social network or the authorities. However, he recalls another game, the “blackout challenge”, during which a 10-year-old Italian woman died in 2021, asphyxiating with a belt.
Aware of the dangerousness of this challenge, many users, some with several thousand subscribers like Pharaone12 or Maman1parfaite , warn of its existence. When you type the hashtag Labellochallenge on TikTok, it is only videos with prevention messages that appear on the platform.
TikTok has also begun to take steps to limit the influence of this challenge. The hashtag #ChapstickChallenge, English version of Labellochallenge, no longer refers to any video but to a series of tips to apply in the event of questionable games.