Egypt warns against TikTok's viral Skullbreaker Challenge

Menna Alaa El-Din , Sunday 16 Feb 2020

The Skullbreaker Challenge, the latest social media trend on popular video-sharing app TikTok, has been going viral in the past days, hitting schools in Egypt

TikTok
TikTok's Skullbreaker Challenge (Photo Courtesy of Social Media)

Egypt has warned against a new viral trend among teens, dubbed Skullbreaker Challenge, which involves danger to students, a circular by the education ministry read.

According to the note, the ministry called upon all schools, educational directorates, boards of trustees including parents and teachers and psychologists to raise awareness about the dangerous game, which it said "may affect [students'] state of mind and lead them to harm themselves or others around them."

The Skullbreaker Challenge, the latest social media trend on popular video-sharing app TikTok, has been going viral in the past days, hitting schools in Egypt.

The challenge requires three participants standing alongside with two of them knocking the third off balance while they jump together in the air.

The dangerous challenge first went viral in Venezuela, leading to serious injuries to a boy who participated in the challenge.

Experts argue that the challenge can cause fatal injuries to the skull or fractures and ligament tears.

This is not the first time that Egypt issues warnings against a game, most notably issuing in 2018 warnings against playing the suicidal Blue Whale internet game.

The Blue Whale online game reportedly pushed several young people across Egypt to attempt to kill themselves or others. It has reportedly killed at least three people in the country.

The game reportedly starts with the player being assigned simple tasks such as waking up at a certain time and watching horror movies, with tasks gradually becoming more severe to challenge the players' capabilities, who get blackmailed if they do not comply.

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