  The Blue Whale Challenge is a series of self-harm causing tasks that are
propagated via online social media under the disguise of a "game." The list of
tasks must be completed in a duration of 50 days and they cause both physical
and mental harm to the player. The final task is to commit suicide. The game is
supposed to be administered by people called "curators" who incite others to
cause self-mutilation and commit suicide. The curators and potential players
are known to contact each other on social networking websites and the
conversations between them are suspected to take place mainly via direct
messages which are difficult to track. Though, in order to find curators, the
players make public posts containing certain hashtags/keywords to catch their
attention. Even though a lot of these social networks have moderated posts
talking about the game, yet some posts manage to pass their filters. Our
research focuses on (1) understanding the social media spread of the challenge,
(2) spotting the behaviour of the people taking interest in Blue Whale
challenge and, (3) analysing demographics of the users who may be involved in
playing the game.
