The images and videos are AI-generated, or sometimes so blurry that it’s difficult to tell if anything is being shown at all. Although the content may look convincing and reference real locations, the character has often been superimposed onto the footage. Some posts have gone as far as creating fake news stories or police reports to add false credibility.

If someone in your care has seen this content, use it as an opportunity to discuss fake news, misinformation, and AI-generated media and discuss what the signs of these might be. Discuss that even highly convincing content online can be false, and that it’s often created to spread rumours or provoke fear. Reassure them that they can always come to you to work out together whether something is real or if something makes them feel uneasy.

If a child hasn’t come across the content, there’s no need to introduce it to them or name the trend explicitly as this can just encourage further engagement.

Some children and young people may find the content funny, but for others it can be genuinely frightening. Look out for behavioural changes such as trouble sleeping, difficulty concentrating, or reluctance to go outside, and open a gentle conversation using questions like:

Remind young people they can block and report anything on their feed that unsettles them, and that it’s best not to engage with or share this kind of content further. Discuss with them how the algorithm repeatedly pushes content that they’ve engaged with to their feed and remind them to use the “not interested” feature to ensure unwanted content is not being shown to them.

Through the trend, a real risk has emerged: some children and young people are commenting under posts to name their own towns, cities or schools as the next target. Remind them never to share their location or their friends’ locations online, especially in public comment sections. Risks arise as strangers with harmful intentions can piece together small details to convincingly pose as someone local.

Content of this kind spreads quickly and is often used as a hook to build an audience, meaning some of the accounts promoting it are not primarily interested in the trend itself but in the traffic it generates. If a young person follows one of these accounts and engages with their content, they may then be exposed to everything else that account posts, which in some cases includes sexualised or other age-inappropriate material. Profile links can also direct them to other platforms where there is little or no moderation or age verification. Make sure to chat with your children and young people about what they are viewing online and encourage reporting habits.