The move comes as Lifeline has acknowledged that more and more people at risk are likely to be contacted through Facebook rather than pick up the phone. To that end, they’ve employed a system which allows friends to report potentially suicidal content and report it via dialog box using the affected parties Facebook name. The writer of the content will than recieve an email from Facebook telling them to contact Lifeline or, and this is the best bit, open up a chat box and have a live-chat with a Lifeline crisis worker.
Suicide and Facebook is a very serious issue. Eighteen year old New Jersey university student Tyler Clementi, who was bullied after being exposed as gay by his classmates, announced his intentions to jump off a bridge on Facebook right before actually doing it. But for every case that is true, others may be abused or ill-reported. How many times have you posted something along the lines of ‘If I hear another LMFAO song I’m going to kill myself’ or ‘Such a long day at work I want to die’? With only your friends as quality control, you’ll be relying heavily on their interpretation which could go wrong either way. That being said it’s certainly a step in the right direction and can only help save more young lives in our increasingly connected future.
via Facebook News.
