'Neknomination' death: Facebook resists calls to ban promotion of online drinking craze

Updated

Facebook is resisting calls to ban content promoting a deadly worldwide drinking craze that is believed to have originated in Australia.

The game, "neknomination", involves people daring one another on social media to perform stunts while drinking alcohol.

Jonny Byrne, 19, was killed in Ireland over the weekend, after jumping into a river while playing the game.

Byrne's body was reportedly pulled from the River Barrow in Carlow a day after he jumped in.

Patrick Byrne vented his anger on Facebook over his brother's death.

"My young 19-year-old brother died tonight in the middle of his nomination," he wrote.

"He thought he had to try and beat the competition, after he necked his pint, he jumped into the river. If people have any decency and respect they will refrain from anymore of this stupid neknomination."

Mr Byrne says he has started a social media campaign to try to have content promoting neknomination removed from Facebook.

"It can do nothing for my family, the tragedy has already happened to our family," he said.

"But if I can stop it happening to one other family, to save them from the heartache and pain we're going through right now, that's all I can do."

Facebook says such content does not break the site's rules and it does have measures in place for users to report wrongdoing.

Topics: drug-use, alcohol, health, information-and-communication, internet-culture, ireland, australia

First posted