What Parents Need to Know About Momo

This summer I'm doing a series on What Parent's Need to Know about *insert some type of online thing here*... because it's not just parents that need to know these things but teachers too AND if there is one thing we all know it's that online stuff changes so often it's hard to keep up (especially when you aren't even using that app/program)!

Today I'm talking about Momo.

"Momo" may be old news by now but that doesn't mean that Momo can't one day be replaced with something else (or pop back up) so I feel like it is still relevant to talk about.

You can find this poster free for download from National Online Safety.

For those of us that didn't see this pop up in the news sometime within the last year.  Momo is a character that pops up in random YouTube videos, WhatsApp, or Facebook posts and challenges viewers to do dangerous things and could send violent images.  To be honest, it's nothing that I want to see so I can't imagine having one of my students see it.

I think we all know what a dark hole YouTube especially can be.  You go in watching one video abotu whales and all of a sudden you are learning how to weave a basket by a Hawaiian.  It's especially easy to do on YouTube because YouTube makes video suggestions to you, and although I have yet to run into this problem (likely because I've never seen a Momo video before), if you happen to stumble across one (even if accidentally) you'll be more likely to have more suggested to you.

It's hard to spot what video may have a Momo part to it as it typically occurs in the middle of a video and the thumbnail and name of the video typically don't advertise that it is one.  So how are parents, teachers, and others supposed to know what might not be appropriate for a young viewer?  

Change your settings so autoplay isn't set up and make sure kids are using Youtube kids (which I know doesn't totally get rid of the problem).

Be aware of what your child is watching.

Talk to your kids/students.

All this technology can definitely be a blessing and a course and it is up to us to raise kids to know how to navigate the world with it.

Last week I talked about what we all need to know about Minecraft.