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Outlets Spread Panic About An Online "Suicide Game" (Without A Single Confirmed Victim)
Three subjects that continually baffle the media are teenagers, games, and the internet in general. The "Blue Whale" panic was a combination of all three, so of course they got it three times as wrong. Supposedly, this online game led to the deaths of more than 130 teens in Russia alone. How? Simply by presenting daily challenges to them over the course of 50 days, ending with "and now, commit suicide." The implication seems to be that perfectly well-adjusted kids got to that point and went, "Oh well, I did the other 49 ..." The mastermind behind this alleged game was even arrested in May 2017 ... and August 2017, and June 2018.
Daily Mirror
Metro
The SunThese are three separate people, by the way, not one who keeps breaking out of jail.
Everyone from the venerable BBC to the non-venerable Daily Mail did multiple articles on "Blue Whale" -- a panic entirely created by the media itself. Out of those 130 deaths, not a single one has been conclusively linked to any online fads. The figure comes from an article by a Russian newspaper, which based their data on the apparent fact that many young suicide victims in Russia belonged to the same online groups, and some of those groups included some morbid games, so those games must have led teens to kill themselves. Because it's not like depressed people would naturally hang out in the same places or anything.
As for the supposed "masterminds," every subsequent report about the first one was sourced (read: lazily reworded) from the same two Russian websites. The Russian media has a, shall we say, "complicated" relationship with the truth, so it's not certain that guy ever bragged about making up a suicide game, or that he even existed. The others are unrelated suicide-enabling psychos being branded as "Blue Whale" masterminds for clicks ... though we guess there is a chance they were influenced by the initial "Blue Whale" coverage. Good job, media!
4
The GOP Didn't Try To Make Healthcare More Expensive For Sexual Assault Victims
Back in May 2017, you probably remember headlines telling you about the Republicans' latest cartoonishly evil plot: trying to turn sexual assault into a preexisting medical condition. This would let insurance providers punish people for committing the crime of having had a crime committed against them.
CNN
New York Magazine
The IndependentWhat would headline writers do without the word "could"?
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