What started as an absurd meme about how delicious the detergent-filled gel pods look, the meme took a dangerous turn with people live-taping themselves eating the poison packs just to post their video on “Tide Pod Challenge”. With 2018 only 18 days old, the Poison Control Center has received 39 cases involving teens this year. According to American Association of Poison Control Centers, in 2017 they responded to 10,500 exposures to highly concentrated packed of laundry detergent by children and youngsters. Don’t miss our Editor’s post on YouTube Reels – The Future of Storytelling Procter & Gamble, which owns Tide, is working with social media networks to remove harmful content that is not consistent with their policies. According to the official authorities, the “Tide Pod Challenge” is neither funny nor without serious health implications and the intentional misuse of these products poses a real threat to the health of individuals. The contents of the pods are only meant for washing clothes and when ingested can cause pulmonary edema, seizures, respiratory arrest, coma, and even death. Read more about the challenge here. What started as a stupid joke has raised concerns, especially for parents. The dare, which encourages people to bite into or eat the detergent capsules, is making rounds on YouTube with people actually eating these pods. With a higher risks of toxicity, parents have become increasingly cautious of not leaving anything in reach of their children who can just pop in the pod thinking it to be a candy. It is important for parents and caregivers to remind teens and young adults on the importance of safe behavior and good judgment. YouTube has jumped in and has clearly commented that it would immediately remove any Tide Pod challenge videos that’s intended to encourage dangerous. Not only this, the YouTube team will quickly remove flagged videos that violate the policies. Since it is a violation of community policies, YouTube will automatically take down any such videos and will also issue strikes against the channel. This stupid stunt can cost your entire account which the management can remove at its sole discretion.
