Social Media Challenges (1 Viewer)

[CapitalCitySaint]

I remember the ice bucket challenge, that was pretty benign, but the tide pod challenge was terrible. It's at once hard to believe anyone would do some of those things and easy to believe. I know the flerfers say we are all sheeple, but in some cases, we are.

Don’t forget the crate challenge

 

[Optimus Prime]

Don’t forget the crate challenge

What was the crate challenge?

 

[CapitalCitySaint]

What was the crate challenge?

Sent plenty of ppl to the hospital with broken bones.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Health officials warn against eating fried toothpicks after viral social media trend

‘Starch toothpicks are a hygiene product!’ health officials write on X

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

Health experts have issued a warning on the dangerous BORG - also known as “blackout rage gallons” - drinking trend popularised by Gen Z college students.

According to the National Capital Poison Center, BORG drinking typically takes place at day parties, popularly known as “darties,” with participants carrying around a gallon-sized plastic jug that has a powerful alcoholic concoction inside.

Consisting of vodka or some other distilled alcohol as well as water, a flavor enhancer, and an electrolyte powder or drink, there’s usually far more alcohol in the jugs than the other ingredients, so much so that experts have dubbed it “life-threatening.”

“Drinking one can lead to potentially life-threatening consumption and alcohol poisoning,” Stanford psychiatry and addiction medicine professor Dr Anna Lembke explained to CNN.

Unlike its long-reigning jungle juice counterpart, usually a party-sized mix meant for all, BORGs are meant for personal use. However, the end goal is ultimately the same - to get you extremely drunk.

“A BORG often contains a fifth [25.6 fluid ounces or 3.2 cups] of vodka or other hard alcohol, which is about 17 standard drinks, which is a massive amount of alcohol.”

Dr Lembke credits BORG drinking’s rise with “social contagion,” made all the worse by the omnipresence of social media like TikTok.........

Health experts issue warning on dangerous Gen-Z ‘BORG’ drinking trend

The popularity of blackout rage gallons - commonly known as BORGs - among GenZ have health experts worried

www.independent.co.uk

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/20/health/borg-blackout-rage-gallon-wellness/index.html#:~:text=The%20acronym%20BORG%20stands%20for,an%20electrolyte%20powder%20or%20drink.

 

[Optimus Prime]

TikTok “challenges” have been blamed for grievous spinal injuries, horrific burns, and, at one point in the not-too-distant past, a global shortage of Ozempic.

Now, the world’s second most popular social media app will be forced to explain itself as it battles accusations that it knowingly steered potentially dangerous videos to young people while ignoring warnings of death and destruction in an attempt to maximize profits.

An opinion handed down Tuesday by a US appeals court breathed new life into a momentous lawsuit filed by a grieving mother who believes TikTok is culpable for the loss of her daughter.

Federal law “provides TikTok immunity from suit for hosting videos created and uploaded by third parties,” US Circuit Judge Paul Matey wrote in his partial concurrence.

At the same time, it does not protect TikTok from being held to account for what Matey described as its alleged “knowing distribution and targeted recommendation of videos it knew could be harmful.”

In a statement provided on Wednesday to The Independent, attorney Jeffrey Goodman, who argued the appeal on behalf of the Anderson family, said, “Big Tech just lost its ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card. This ruling ensures that the powerful social media companies will have to play by the same rules as all other corporations, and when they indifferently cause harm to children, they will face their day in court.”

It was the TikTok-infamous “Blackout Challenge” that killed 10-year-old Nylah Anderson, according to her mom.

In December 2021, Philadelphia-area resident Tawainna Anderson discovered her daughter’s lifeless body on the bedroom floor, following the “active, happy, healthy, and incredibly intelligent” girl’s attempt to complete the challenge, in which users of the world’s second most popular non-gaming app choked themselves with belts, towels, or other objects until they passed out. Nylah was rushed to the hospital, where she died five days later.

Over an 18-month span between 2021 and 2022, the Blackout Challenge was said to have killed 20 children in 18 months, 15 of them under the age of 12. And it’s hardly the only dangerous “challenge” to go viral.

The “Skullbreaker Challenge,” which involves kicking a person’s legs out from under them as they jump into the air, nearly paralyzed a 13-year-old Pennsylvania girl, and has led to criminal charges in at least one instance.

The so-called Angel of Death Challenge, a “game” in which participants jump in front of moving vehicles to see if they’ll stop in time, has reportedly led to multiple deaths.

And when a 12-year-old Arizona boy attempted the TikTok “Fire Challenge,” where youngsters record themselves igniting blazes at home, he landed in the ICU and has undergone multiple surgeries since…….,

A 10-year-old died during the viral ‘blackout challenge.’ Now TikTok could be liable

“Big Tech just lost its ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card,” attorney Jeffrey Goodman said

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

Not a social media challenge but forked up all the same
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Tempted by the false promise of $9 million by a man she met online, Denali Dakota Skye Brehmer lured her so-called best friend into the Alaskan wilderness where the teenager was bound with duct tape and shot in the head as part of a brutal murder plot.

What began with a bizarre online catfishing scheme, ended in the death of Cynthia “CeeCee ” Hoffman, 19, who was developmentally disabled.

A man from Indiana, Darin Schilmiller, then 21, posed as a millionaire from Kansas called “Tyler” on Snapchat. He struck up a relationship with Brehmer, who was 18 years old at the time, and offered to send her millions of dollars via PayPal for the “rape and murder of someone in Alaska”.

Brehmer agreed. She enlisted other friends into the plot and then on June 2, 2019, they carried out the murder of CeeCee near Thunderbird Falls, a popular trail area just north of Anchorage. Her death was captured in photos and video that were sent back to “Tyler” on Snapchat as proof.

In February 2023, Brehmer pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Her friends were also charged in the murder: 16-year-old Kayden McIntosh pulled the trigger, and 19-year-old Caleb Leyland, who provided the vehicle to carry out the plot.

Now, for the first time, Brehmer is speaking publicly about the murder in the third episode “Catfishing for Murder” of Court TV’s new limited series Interview With a Killer.

“I’ve already admitted guilt so now I’m ready to fully take responsibility for what I’ve done,” Brehmer says in the interview at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center.

But as she’s confronted about what happened that fateful day, her story begins to change.

Brehmer acknowledges that the murder was somewhat premeditated, but then blames it on panic when a bound and gagged CeeCee began “freaking out” about going to the cops which led to McIntosh grabbing the gun.

“I just went along with it,” Brehmer says calmly in the interview. “Because… problem solved, right?”..........

Three weeks before CeeCee was killed, Brehmer and “Tyler,” who met on Snapchat, began talking on the app about their plans to rape and murder someone in Alaska.

The Anchorage Police Department later learned that “Tyler” was actually Darin Schilmiller of Indiana who had posed as the millionaire online with fake pictures as part of the catfishing scheme in which he offered to pay Brehmer “$9 million or more to commit the murder and send him videos and/or photographs of the murder,” according to a statement released at the time.

Brehmer asked some of her friends to help and offered them an unknown amount of the so-called prize money for their part in the planning of the murder, according to police.

that she and Brehmer had gotten into a fight over a boy.

“Initially, when we all came up with it, I agreed and said yeah because I was mad at her and she was mad at me and I was just over her s***,” Brehmer says in the interview about the fight they had over a boy named Zack. “I wanted to make amends, I did want to make amends but she needed payback for what she did with Zack.”

When asked in the documentary if she deserved payback with her life, a defeated Brehmer sighs and says, “no,” adding “that’s on me.”

Brehmer was eventually arrested, and once she realized she had been catfished or tricked by Schilmiller, otherwise known as “Tyler,” she told authorities that she had been solicited by him.

She was given the maximum sentence for her role in the killing, according to the Alaska Department of Law.

“She may not have pulled the trigger, but this never would have happened it if it weren’t for [her]” Patrick McKay, Anchorage assistant district attorney, said of Brehmer during sentencing.

“She executed Cynthia Hoffman in a murder-for-hire plot. She conspired with numerous other individuals in and outside of Alaska, including juveniles, forever altering everybody’s life.”

Schilmiller, who posed as “Tyler” online, was also sentenced to 99 years in prison for his role in the murder.

He admitted to federal agents and the Indiana State Police he chose CeeCee as the victim after he heard about the fight and told Brehmer to kill her, court documents said.............

The chilling murder of an Alaskan teenager by her so-called ‘best friend’

Denali Brehmer is serving a 99-year-old prison sentence for killing her “best friend” in 2019 after allegedly being catfished by a man who offered her $9m to commit the murder. She’s speaking out publicly for the first time. Andrea Cavallier reports

www.independent.co.uk