The thin and scary line between the virtual world of viral videos and harsh reality tragically materialized a San Cataldoin the province of Caltanissetta, where two sisters aged 8 and 12 disappeared into thin air for 21 hours. After the desperate complaint presented by the father to the police, the searches ended with finding the girls inside a clothing store located a short distance from their home.
The dangerous trend of the 24 Hour Overnight Challenge
But what is even more disturbing is the reason for this disappearance. According to what was reconstructed by the investigators and confirmed by the minors themselves, the two little sisters had decided to sneak into the business taking advantage of the closing phases to spend the night hidden among the shelves. The crazy and unconscious goal was to emulate the famous 24 Hour Overnight Challengeone of the most dangerous trends circulating on digital platforms.
The phenomenon, born on the web already in 2016 thanks to pioneers like him Ireland Boys Productions and spread over time by countless digital creators, it consists of entering a shop or shopping center before closing, hiding in warehouses or behind displays to evade security checks and film the entire night spent alone.
A chilling experience if you think that they were the ones who put themselves in such danger such little girlsdriven by the compulsive need to replicate gestures seen on YouTube and immortalized in videos capable of totaling millions of views.
The repeated viewing of these contents acted as a fuse, pushing very young girls to evade family surveillance for a social thrill, an episode that pushed the Caltanissetta prosecutor for minors Rocco Cosentino to launch a heartfelt appeal on concrete risks of digital irresponsibility.
The importance of bans and the European Union’s historic grip on the Kids Act
Dramatic events like this demonstrate how urgent and fundamental it is to stem the uncontrolled access of very young people to digital platforms, where aggressive algorithms and extreme challenges suck in the most impressionable minds. Precisely to respond to this global emergency and in line with what other countries have done, theEuropean Union has recently adopted the Kids Acta disruptive regulatory package designed to protect children and adolescents in the virtual world.
The new legislative proposal introduces a series of bans and stringent obligations for technological giants, establishing the absolute ban on access to social media for minors of 13 years old and imposing a common minimum age of 15 years to open a standalone account without direct parental control.
