Influencer, 48, cited for instigating suicide on TikTok

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 28 - A 48-year-old woman influencer from Siracusa in Sicily has been 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 cannot breathe in a so-called Blackout Challenge.
    Police said it was "all the more urgent to take action in this case because the video could have been seen by minors," referring to a 10-year-old Palermo girl who choked to death on her belt last week after taking a Blackout Challenge on TikTok.
    In the wake of that case, which caused outrage in Italy, the country's privacy watchdog already blocked access to TikTok for users whose age cannot be verified.
    On Wednesday the watchdog widened its probe into the case asking Facebook and Instagram for information on how she had been able to open accounts on their platforms.
    Facebook said it 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 was said to have children of her own, will be removed, said the head of Tuscany's postal police, Alessandra Belardini.
    "There's a lot of talk about parents being examples, but they can't be when they are the first to do dangerous things on the Web," she said. (ANSA).