The “game” is popping up on television news reports across the country, and it preys on parents’ worst nightmare: A missing child.
The point of the so-called “48-hour challenge” is for “missing” teens to disappear for two days to accumulate “points” for each frantic social media post, share and like that’s posted as clueless parents try to find them.
Local law enforcement has been warning families about the challenge -- even though there are no reports it has actually happened anywhere.
Snopes has labeled the “Game of 72,” which apparently originated in the U.K. in 2015, “false,” and the newer 48-hour derivative “false” too.
When television news outlets began picking up the story earlier this week, they noted that local police had not seen any reports of missing children thought to be tied to the game.
Cincinnati police told Fox 19 that the department has not seen any missing children due to the challenge. WXYZ-TV in Detroit also included in its report that no children from the area had been reported missing in connection with the game.
But headlines suggesting that police are warning parents about potential danger to their kids persist. The only account of a mother claiming her child was missing due to the game came from Northern Ireland.
But that didn’t stop the worry from spreading closer to home, via Facebook, with one poster even warning that the game had ties to the so-called “deep state shadow government.”
If you’re concerned about what your kids are reading and doing online, Parenting.com recommends staying involved in your kids’ online lives and using parental controls from your internet service provider or your internet browser to keep them safer while using the internet.
Comments