Suicide By Social Media

For six weeks, Daniella Scott was groomed by an online figure who convinced her he was her best friend — until he asked her to commit the unspeakable. What happened over the next few weeks is one of the most shocking stories you will read all year.

- Daniella Scott

The eyes staring back at me are kind and inviting. His face is framed by dark hair, scruffy three-day stubble and a pair of geeky metal-rimmed glasses. We've been talking non-stop for weeks and this is the first time I've seen his face: the face of the man I've confided in about my darkest, most personal thoughts. "I care about you,” he tells me. "I am always here for you.” He says he wants the best for me, that I can trust him to look after me and, most importantly, that he is the person who is going to guide me through a series of tasks, culminating in my suicide in 50 days' time. This is what `best friends' do, he tells me.

Last year, a Russian man named Philipp Budeikin was jailed for inciting two young girls to attempt suicide, through an online social-media game he claimed to have invented, called 'Blue Whale.’ Budeikin had never met the girls or spoken with them face-to-face. Instead, he'd infiltrated their lives through their social media, putting himself astride every update: wherever they went, he was in their pockets; whoever they were with and whatever they were doing, he was an inescapable factor in their lives. Over the course of 50 days, he controlled and manipulated each of them into performing a number of tasks involving everything from humiliation to self-harm and, eventually, in order to `win the game,’ they had to kill themselves. He received a three-year sentence. The girl at the centre of his trial had lived, and could testify as to his involvement, but Budeikin has claimed to be behind the deaths of 17 girls, and it was reported that the game he created was responsible for more than 130 suicides. Budeikin's case brought to light the myriad others that go on every day.