'Instigation' probe into suicide of girl, 12

(ANSA) - TURIN, MAR 15 - Italian police have opened an instigation to suicide probe in the death of a 12-year-old girl who hanged herself with the belt of her dressing gown at Ivrea near Turin on Sunday night, judicial sources said Monday.
    Police think she may have been taking part in a choking game on TikTok.
    There is no evidence of that for the moment, however, they said.
    The girl was found by her father hanging from a mantelpiece in their home.
    He called emergency services who rushed to the scene but could do nothing for her.
    If proven it would not be the first case of a girl dying while doing a TikTok suffocation game.
    In January a 10-year-old Palermo girl died after doing a so-called Blackout Challenge on the Chinese video sharing site.
    TikTok has since tightened its rules on the age of users, as have Facebook and Instagram, at the request of Italian authorities.
    The Palermo girl's death on January 21 was followed on January 28 by the case of a 48-year-old woman influencer from Siracusa, also in Sicily, who was cited by postal police for allegedly instigating suicide by posting a video on TikTok showing a man and a woman wrapping adhesive tape around their mouths and noses so they could not breathe in another Blackout Challenge.
    The privacy watchdog, meanwhile widened its probe into the case of the Palermo girl by asking Facebook and Instagram for information on how she had been able to open accounts on their platforms too.
    They said they would collaborate fully with the investigation.
    In the case of the Siracusa influencer, police said they had found out that she had posted other challenge videos that had helped her amass over 730,000 followers of various ages.
    They found around 20 videos of dangerous challenges including inhaling cream through the nose, closing your eyelids with pincers, and pretending to break an arm with saucepans.
    All the challenges were performed by the influencer.
    All the videos posted by the woman, who has children of her own, were removed. (ANSA).