BVI News

Parents warned of suicidal video disguised as children’s programme

The ominous video character Momo who encourages children to cut themselves.

Government’s Social Development Department has issued a warning to local parents about a hack on video-sharing website Youtube that is encouraging children to harm themselves.

The hack is in the form of a character called Momo. Momo infiltrates popular children’s programmes being aired on Youtube such as Peppa Pig and instructs youngsters to cut themselves with knives and razors.

After first frightening children with threats to kill them, Momo then tells infants: “Slice your leg and you will never meet me. Slice your wrists and your parents will never see me.”

Parents should be extremely concerned

Acting Head of Family Children and Protective Services Unit within the Social Development Department, Laurel Freeman, said parents ought to be “extremely concerned”, especially because of the continued limited access to cable television in the BVI since the 2017 hurricanes.

She said this limited access has ‘placed an enormous demand on what is described as ‘screen time’ on handheld devices such as cellphones, video games, tablets, kindles.

She, therefore, encourages parents to give greater vigilance to what their children watch on these devices.

“It is very easy to allow our children to watch programmes and/or without proper supervision and because the programmes are being watched on small devices, we are even more tuned out,” Freeman said.

“We understand that the devices act to provide entertainment while parents are multi-tasking. But we cannot let/allow our children to be consumed by these internet programmes We should always be present when children are using cellphones, tablets, kindles and other electronic devices,” she added.

Parents are being encouraged to “view programmes they have chosen with their children”.

Below are guidelines the Social Development Department have drafted for parents.

1. Always monitor what your children watch on electronic devices.

2. Set clear rules about device usage and time and implement them.  A limit of two hours per day is the recommended amount of time.

3. Engage in more family activities together.

4. Encourage interaction by socialising and learning from the environment

5. Encourage more reading through books.

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10 Comments

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  1. Wow says:

    That thing is creepy as heck! I’d run before clicking on that! Thank you for the warning.

    Like 10
  2. Jay says:

    This has already been revealed as a hoax. Stop recycling old news.

    Like 9
    Dislike 4
    • Jon says:

      The whole thing started on whatsapp in 2017 and it was mostly popular among teenagers. I think the issue is that now some people are saying that they have seen it pop up on children videos. So that’s why it’s spreading now.

      Like 4
      Dislike 1
      • RR says:

        It’s not popping up anywhere- it’s a hoax. It has been disproved. This is all just scaremongering. There’s enough real bad stuff out there without making a fuss about pretend stuff…….

        Like 5
        Dislike 3
        • Goodsense says:

          I have seen the video and whether it is important for parents to monitor what their children are watching on electronic devices; that is the bigger picture

          Like 4
          Dislike 1
  3. Advance says:

    Why is there always negativity the department is simply asking parents to monitor what children watch on electronics look at the tips at the end

    Like 11
    Dislike 1
  4. SMH says:

    Mo Mo is a f*****g MOO MOO! Stop giving airtime to this nonsense.

    Like 3
    Dislike 1
  5. Anonymous says:

    Lol this was just another case of the internet fooling the gullible. Just like those stupid messages about WhatsApp deactivating your account if you don’t forward to everybody in your contact list don’t believe everything that you read or see on the internet. Stop forwarding or broadcasting everything you see on social media or the internet sometimes these stuff are bloated with spyware and malware and all it takes is one idiot to forward and affect everyone. Those videos about cheese and macaroni made from plastic stop forwarding not everything that is on a video is real. Instead of forwarding you can do a google research from credible sources and you may see that the articles were later debunked.

  6. lekisha says:

    so people think momo is real but in your dreams

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