The Internets, the LAW and UFollow

That kid threatened suicide numerous times on that site. Apparently nobody took him seriously anymore.

Natural selection at work once again.

Seems like he was just crying out for more attention clear til the end.

He either had some serious problems if that one instance in the chatroom is what caused him to kill himself or.. Well he still had some problems and nothing that was said on there would of changed his mind on it.

It may sound a little heartless but..

If you look at the thread, most of the posters were more like, "cheers - how many pills do you take to get super high?"

I only saw one poster that said anything like "bad idea". Most of them were not responding to it as a suicide threat but as a "oh man I'm gonna be so blasted" post.

Yeah but you have to think about the long term effect of all that hot air.

Word is that the actual webcam chatroom was much more volatile, but given how heinously the forum thread was described compared to the real thing, I'm willing to believe there's more than a little exaggeration there too.

This is the kind of scenario that gives me nightmares. We have over the years had several suicide-ish dramas in various forums. Three of those that I was involved with at least perephrerailly were serious enough that police were called.

The nightmare for us admins, is what happens if we lock the thread? Remove the audiance, remove the reason for them to off themselves live on our site? or remove the audiance, and push them over the edge so they kill themselves. Its a really, really tough call. And no, they don't pay any of us enough to deal with that ****.

How do you judge a suicide threat over text? There are too many people, and not all of them are people I "know" well enough to make a determiniation. Is "If they change my class stats one more time, I swear to god I'll kill myself" ok? What about "I swear to god I'll kill myself"? What if its a 1 post wonder troll? Context only goes so far, and I have to err on the side of caution.

The way I look at it, is so long as it doesn't seem "serious" leave the thread open, monitor, nuke "encouraging" comments immidiatly, and watch for it to develope further. Usually there are a flurry of side PMs too which we get forwarded that let us help monitor the situation. If it looks like they are actually serious in any way, we call the police and lock the thread.

Then we wait.

if locking the thread causes someone to kill themselves, I think i'm prepared to accept that as a consequince, because at least if they were going to do that anyways, its now private and the rest of the forum didn't have to watch.

No one should ever have to see someone else die. You lose a bit of your soul each time.

Thats one of the reason I am so harsh on people who try and push the limits of the image system in the forum. In my past security and intel career I saw things that make me very thankful I never remember my dreams. There are things I never want to see again. Things I can't see again.

I won't let some ******* killing themselves on my forum get added to the list.

See, you were much more economical before making that promise.

I understand that depression is a disease and all, but I really think these perfectly healthy, wallowing in self-pity folks should pay a visit to a Shriners Hospital for Children and explain to a 4 year old that's fighting for her life because of something truly tragic how their own life is too painful to endure.

If someone has an actual medical condition, that's one thing, but I can't help but feel many of these folks are simply ungrateful. They do not appreciate all that they do and do not have. Instead of crying out for help, why don't they add meaning to their lives by helping others that actually have real problems?

My gut reaction is to side with Anna in this case. He flubbed and actually succeeded. When I was 35 my best friend whom I'd known since Kindergarten blew his brains out. There were no cries for help. He made no indication of his intent. He just did it. So now I'm jaded enough that whenever I hear someone flapping their gums about suicide I just want to punch them.

If we stop watching people kill themselves, they'll stop killing themselves??

Do you think this dead person is really craving your attention?

Yeah, apparently you're not really all that clear on the "disease" aspect.

I think people threaten suicide for attention. Why let someone know you are going to kill yourself unless you want to see people care? A person who does it without telling anyone isn't trying to be saved.

People watching the video and reading about it is the reason they did it in the first place. They wanted to see people care about them, or have people care that they killed themselves. Not validating what they did by watching it isnt going to make them stop, there is always going to be someone who is giving them attention in a situation like this, wether good or bad. He wanted the attention in that chat room. I don't think it means much now that he killed himself, but it doesn't validate what he did if you dont watch it.

Did the webcam keep rolling as the organ harvesters took his innards? Or was he too apathetic to sign his damn donor card.

My sister tried to kill herself once. We had no warning. We only knew because once she had started the process (the whole "slitting wrists" thing), she panicked, changed her mind and called someone. She had never once mentioned suicide or wishing she were dead.

Same with a boy I knew in high school. We all thought he was the happiest, most well adjusted kid around. Good looking, never lacked for dates or friends to do things with. Then one day he blew his head off. Didn't leave a note. We never did find out what was bothering him.