“We are deeply concerned.” The Beiersdorf group, owner of the lip balm brand, reacted on Wednesday May 11 to the Labello Challenge with BFM Business. This is a challenge on the TikTok social network. Initially, the teenagers had to exchange a kiss, to guess the taste of their lip balm. But this challenge has taken a more ominous turn, with some users encouraging suicide attempts when the tube is empty.
“We would like to emphasize that our brand is in no way associated with or supportive of this challenge or any other form of violence or self-harm”comments Beiersdorf. The group calls on the people concerned, or whose relatives are concerned, to “ask for help” and to “get in touch, for example, with the official hotline provided by the public authorities at 3114”a free line available 24 hours a day.
On his side, the Ministry of the Interior broadcast a message on May 6 calling for vigilance. Contacted by franceinfo, Place Beauvau specifies that this is a message of prevention. “We are very vigilant about this kind of phenomenon but we have no feedback”confirms a police source. No incident related to this challenge has been reported in France to date.
Rare are the contents where young people film themselves. Some of them, interviewed by France 2, claim to have seen these videos circulating. Dozens of videos, with distressing music in support, are broadcast on TikTok. Without always knowing if the intention to harm yourself is real or if it is only a way of attracting Internet users to your profile.
This is often the case for “challenges” of this type. In 2018, a father filed a complaint against YouTube, WhatsApp and the state after the suicide of his 14-year-old son, which he attributes to the “Momo Challenge”, a challenge of the same kind. The investigation opened for “endangering the lives of others” was dismissed in February 2020 for “insufficiently characterized offense”.