If you thought that only TikTok was home to dangerous (as well as stupid) challenges, you are wrong. Because your new house is your own home, since Alexa gave a 10-year-old British girl a challenge that could have hurt her badly, or something worse... We tell you all the details of the story and what Amazon has done about it with the speakers Echo.
When you thought that by uninstalling TikTok you had gotten rid of all those challenges Dangerous and senseless, the enemy sneaks into the house.
Un amazon echo speaker was playing with a 10-year-old British girl, challenging her with harmless challenges when, suddenly, there was a scene that looked like something out of a horror movie.
As if the machines had started their rebellion and this was the prologue of Matrix, he proposed to do something that could have ended very badly.
What happened to Alexa and the dangerous challenge she proposed to a girl
The girl's mother, Kristin Livdahl, described the incident on Twitter, also including a catch which proved the veracity of the incident.
https://twitter.com/klivdahl/status/1475220450598924297
Do not worry, we will tell you in detail what happened, in the words of the mother herself to the BBC:
"We were doing some physical challenges, like lie down and roll balancing a shoe on your foot... It was bad outside and the girl just wanted another challenge."
It was then that your speaker Echo suggested participating in a challenge he had "found on the web". It was about connecting a device with a plug to the network, but not fully inserting said plug. Then, the girl had to take a coin and touch the part of it that was left with it. exposed of the sideburns
The dangerous activity, known as "The Penny Challenge," began circulating about a year ago on TikTok (obviously), as well as other social networks.
Metals conduct electricity and their introduction into live sockets can cause electric shock, fire and other damage, both personal and material.
In fact, depending on the current and the socket, these damages can be serious, such as losing a finger, being unconscious from the shock... or worse.
The girl's mother tweeted that she intervened, yelling, "No, Alexa, no!"
Amazon's intervention after the incident
As soon as the experience was shared online, Amazon intervened through its Twitter account. Yes indeed, giving a response that leads to the generic form of complaints on Twitter. The same as if you had lost a package on the way:
Hi there. We're sorry to hear this! Please reach out to us directly via the following link so that we can look into this further with you: https://t.co/YlLYrTtGzy. We hope this helps. -Daragh
—Amazon Help (@AmazonHelp) December 27, 2021
However, things did not stop there and, apparently, Alexa and smart speakers have been updated to prevent something similar from happening again.
Also in statements to the BBC, the company that created the Echo stated that: "As soon as we became aware of this error, we took prompt action to fix it."
So it seems that, at least for now, everything has been a scare without consequences, although we do not know if it would have been the case if the mother had been absent.
For now, the rebellion of the machines has been stopped once again, but the episode has been quite disturbing.