Halloween is just around the corner and creepy WhatsApp chain letters are once again circulating on many children's smartphones.

Younger people in particular feel horror voice messages, horror images or death threats! totally unsettled.

Our cooperation partner Saferinternet gives tips on how to deal with chain letters in WhatsApp!

Most of the time, only harmless jokes are shared en masse on WhatsApp - but sometimes chain letters also contain death threats or other horror stories. We give tips on how parents can support their children with fears.

Chain letters were already a nuisance when they still came in the mail. As an email version, they were and are just as annoying and sometimes even dangerous (viruses). Chain letters are increasingly being sent via the WhatsApp messenger service. Because of the ease of sharing, the chain letters spread like wildfire within the network.

The “unwritten law” behind these mass mailings: Anyone who receives a chain letter must forward it to a certain number of people within a short period of time. The chain must never be broken, otherwise there is supposed to be great disaster. However, chain letters are fundamentally always hoaxes . A hoax is false news on the Internet that was intentionally circulated as such.

Death threats cause fear and terror

Some chain letters are quite funny or original, but they are increasingly fear and terror . For example, in a disturbing WhatsApp audio message , a computer voice claims that the recipient will die if he/she does not immediately forward the message to 20 contacts. “If you don’t send it on, you won’t be alive tomorrow,” the audio message says . Apparently a person who didn't forward the message had already been killed; she was "screaming for her life," the computer voice continued. Finally, there are also threats to murder the mother; here, too, a person who ignored the warning has already been murdered.

While adults probably recognize this threat as a bad joke, many children and young people cannot always classify this message as fake. They are really afraid of it and don't know how to react.

More current chain letter examples

  • The “Clarissa chain letter”:

WARNING! Continue reading! Or you will die even if you just look at the word warning. Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Clarissa. She was ten years old when she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. She had killed her parents. But nothing could stop her. She killed all the psychiatric staff, so the government decided to get rid of her. In a specially equipped room they tried to kill her as humanely as possible. But it went wrong. Something was wrong with the machine. And so she sat there in agony for hours. Until she died. Anyone who reads this letter will be visited by her on Monday at 12:00. She crawls into your room and slits your throat. You will bleed to death painfully. Like her. Send this text to 10 other images on this website and she won't track you. This won't be your worst decision. If you copy it 10 times within 10 minutes and paste it under other pictures, then tomorrow will be the best day of your life. You will either be kissed or just happy. If you break this chain you will see a little dead girl in your room tonight. HURRY UP

  • The “Skinned Parents” chain letter:

MIMIKAMA(Thanks to Mimikama for the screenshot.)

  • The “WhatsApp will be charged” chain letter:

MIMIKAMA

Chain letters warning about WhatsApp fees appear again and again in new variations - the truth of all of them is zero.

Real or fake?

If you are unsure whether a message is real or not , it helps to enter excerpts from the message into search engines - a hoax can usually be exposed very quickly. It is also recommended to subscribe to news from Watchlist Internet or Mimikama, for example, to keep up to date with current Internet counterfeits. The Saferinternet.at teaching material “True or False on the Internet?” helps children and young people learn and practice information skills on the Internet. The brochure also provides helpful tips on how to expose fake news on the Internet.

Tips on how parents can talk to their children about chain letters

  • Bring up the topic yourself and explain what chain letters are. Children are often not aware of what lies behind chain letters and that the “dangers” described in them have nothing to do with reality.
  • Take your child's fears seriously! If a child is worried that they or a loved one might die because they didn't forward a message, then these worries are very real and often very powerful. It is not always easy to refute these irrational fears with reasonable arguments. But maybe it helps to tell stories from your own past, after all, each of us was confronted with chain letters (albeit via other media) in our own childhood/youth. Even if we didn't forward these letters, no misfortune befell us.
  • Discuss with your child which chain letters can be forwarded - and which cannot. Not all chain letters are threatening or questionable, some are just nice! Go through the chain letters together that your child has probably collected in large numbers on WhatsApp. If necessary, discuss each chain letter with each other. Practice with your child not to send “creepy” chain letters so as not to unnecessarily scare other children. Simply delete chain letters with unpleasant content immediately!
  • Always make it clear to your child that nothing bad will happen if you don't forward a chain letter. If you accompany your child, over time he or she will gain the certainty that the dangers threatened in chain letters are not real.

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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )