KFCB Warns Parents Over Netflix Series 'Squid Game'
The Kenya Film and Classification Board has warned parents to protect their children against the series "Squid Game" over graphic, violent content that is being redistributed on YouTube and other social platforms.
Christine Juma 
“The release of the ‘Squid Game’ to the Kenyan market has, however, also elicited concern from parents and caregivers over children emulating some of the scenes in real-life settings, either at home or in school,” reads the statement.
The Board also wrote to Google requesting them to ensure that sections and scenes of the Squid Game that have been recreated, distributed, and exhibited on YouTube are pulled down or made inaccessible to help in ensuring that the content is restricted to adults. This is after it had noted that some of the gory scenes of the series had been copied and pasted onto other online streaming platforms including Youtube which is in contravention of the intellectual property rights of the owners of the content.
On the other hand, the board also added that despite the child-like references to games, Squid Game is rated 18, and it's only intended for mature audiences.
KFCB also further argued that the streaming platform, Netflix has self-rated Squid Game 18+ with notes for suicide, violence, and sex to advise viewers that are 18 and above that the content could be disturbing.
According to the KFCB, there is now a possibility that children would wish to reenact violent scenes from the popular series, which could lead to damage, as seen by prior occurrences.
“It will be recalled that in 2021, a Kenyan youth is reported to have confessed as having murdered his parents and siblings on account of the influence of a film titled Killing Eve. Further, in 2017, another popular challenge game dubbed Blue Whale, allegedly led to suicide among teenagers in various parts of the world including Kenya,” says KFCB.
KFBC Boss Christopher Wambua urged aren’t s to be careful with whatever their children will watching especially during holidays.
“If parents give their children access to smartphones and online streaming platforms such as Netflix, they must take deliberate steps to monitor what their young ones, especially minors, are consuming in order to guide them accordingly and make use of the wide parental controls offered on the service,” KFCB reports
