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Facebook Puts Users On Suicide Watch 187

Posted by samzenpus from the keeping-an-eye-on-things dept.
Mark Wilson writes A few months ago Twitter was criticized for teaming up with suicide prevention charity Samaritans to automatically monitor for key words and phrases that could indicate that someone was struggling to cope with life. Despite the privacy concerns that surrounded Samaritans Radar, Facebook has decided that it is going to launch a similar program in a bid to prevent suicides. Working with mental health organizations including Forefront, Now Matters Now, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and Save.org, Facebook aims to provide greater help and support for anyone considering suicide or self-harm.
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Facebook Puts Users On Suicide Watch More

Facebook Puts Users On Suicide Watch

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  • When will slashdot follow? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Many nerds become suicidal when missing out on first post...

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Nerds have too much self esteem to be suicidal. They're put on genocide watch instead.

      "For most of eternity, I won't exist. That leaves two options: live forever or destroy the universe." [smbc-comics.com]

    • facebook is mostly a teen phenomenon .. and the 30 somethings particularly despetate males and howsewifes .. It runs like any other social platform .. people by nature like to be validated by others.. even us nerds do although we dont take it very seriously .. A downmod for a comment you though was good kinda pisses you off .. A thumb down whatever that is on facebook for you picture in your new dress pisses the "muggles" off .. And since they dont have big brains like many people here do , it's mostl

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rs79 ( 71822 )

        >facebook is mostly a teen phenomenon

        Unlikely. FB has proven to be the most handy tool for collaboration worldwide between ichthyologists to ever happen. I can't speak or other disciplines but it's changed the face of this particular science.

        Tumblr needs this WAY more tan anything else. Of course that would affect half the userbase.

        • I wanted to click on your signature link but the fucked up "new" Slashdot layout puts "reply to this" link directly over your own signature link.

        • ... words fail me... i hate facebook just a little less now.

          This is a good world.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

        Facebook has just turned 11 years old a few weeks ago.
        Most people who joined facebook in their teens are no longer be teens.
        How can it still be called a "teen phenomenon"?

        If you seriously don't know what the moderation system of Facebook looks like, you don't get out much.
        It's demonstrated on pretty much every website, on TV and radio commercials and shows. Even paper media will tell you how it works.

        Go back to your hipster coffeebar and don't come out until you've grown your own opinions.

        • Most people who joined facebook in their teens are no longer be teens.
          How can it still be called a "teen phenomenon"?

          They still exist in their pre adult world.

          When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

          • Re:When will slashdot follow? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by BasilBrush ( 643681 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @08:15AM (#49145763)

            when I became a man, I put away childish things.

            You're not a geek then.

          • People who quote old sayings as if they justify their own beliefs are using childish thinking.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of appearing childish.

            FTFY.

            This one is also a favorite of mine.
            "The most sophisticated people I know, inside they are all children. -Jim Henson"

          • but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

            Including the fear of being perceived as being childish?

            • but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

              Including the fear of being perceived as being childish?

              There is a huge gulf between being childish, and being childlike. Childlike is a very positive thing, eagerness to learn, wonder at the universe, and vivacity.

              Childish? More of a description of the asshat behavious of adults than of children.

      • >facebook is mostly a teen phenomenon

        No, teens have probably moved on to something else when facebook became dominated by relatives.

  • No win situation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Thursday February 26, 2015 @11:02PM (#49144071)
    If they do, they're criticized for being too intrusive.
    If they don't, they are criticized when someone puts a teeny bit of info out there, and the Overlord Facebook does nothing about it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 )
      Oh, and this semi-Beta slashdot sucks. Possibly worse than the previous Beta we've seen.

      • I thought it was just a running gag for the MS Browser Engine story but it seems to have infected the rest of the site!

        • What they've done to the mobile site is far far worse. It now features intrusive banner ads that take up 20% of the screen and WILL NOT GO AWAY. You can't scroll past them, you can't close them. (Also, the disable-ads option is gone). I didn't care that much about the earlier changes, but this is the change that is literally going to drive me away from Slashdot.

      • I couldn't make out the post button at first and it's that way on the classic view too.
      • Its not that bad really .. Not as bad as beta .. I couldnt find the post button thogh .. it seems to be hidden at the left top corner ..

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by rs79 ( 71822 )

        The text is really fucked up, the "reply to this" and "share" links overlap the last few lines of each post (win32 Opera 12)

      • Re:No win situation (Score:4, Informative)

        by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @04:57AM (#49145253) Homepage

        Yes, I think we can all agree the Un-Beta looks like shit.
        It's quite... fascinating how a site for nerds can't seem to get the most basic CSS1 right.

        • soylent news readers (all 5000 of them!) were having a chuckle about that.

          Slashcode is open source, from which the soylentils forked the code and have an active repository on github.

          Meanwhile, the Slashdot website runs on an a bastardised version.

    • Just Remember. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If you're thinking of committing suicide. Please remember.

      No one cares, and it wont get any better.

    • Well Facebook's entire business model is to BE intrusive.
      If they can save a few lives with it it actually makes them, on balance, very slightly LESS evil.

      • Facebook shouldn't be so judgemental, why should people's decision to commit suicide not be honoured? How is "save a few lives" a good thing if those lives are lived by people who don't want to live those lives!

        Oh dear /. moderation system is going to call the Samaritans on me now...

      • Re:No win situation (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) * on Friday February 27, 2015 @06:45AM (#49145503) Homepage Journal

        On the other hand if people know that Facebook is watching them this way they may be less likely to contact friends to talk about their problems, so it could actually have the effect of isolating people even more.

        Facebook is not a good way to prevent suicide.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

          Disingenuous, Facebook aren't watching them, they're just chucking the text they type through some heuristic analysis. I would be concerned if Facebook then sold the resulting analysis - that'd be a massive breach of privacy.

          • So, if they aren't passing the information on to a third party, just WTF are they doing with it?

            I'm sorry, but what are they planning to do if their analysis suggests little Timmy is a bit depressed? Is a random post on his timeline from some stranger asking if he needs a hug really going to change anything for him? Or is FB just going to increase the rate of advertising and only show him ads for the Suicide Prevention Hotline?

            /I'd bet his local gun shop would pay better for that ad space.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

              They could put forwards Samaritans etc to the depressed person for free in a private manner.

          • they're just chucking the text they type through some heuristic analysis

            Otherwise known as watching them, your pedantry notwithstanding.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

              If no human ever see the analysis and the whole system is automated then I wouldn't call it watching.

              Is your computer watching you when you web cam is on?

              Is your keyboard watching you type?

              Stretching things a bit isn't it.

            • they're just chucking the text they type through some heuristic analysis

              Otherwise known as watching them, your pedantry notwithstanding.

              The internetz ain't wut it uzed to be I'll tell you wat.

              Back in the day, we would all be going to Facebook, and telling everyone we were so tired of life, and were going to end it all on every post, then start up a "I hate it when" internet search thread to rival "I hate it when a Gerbil eats the universe."

              Doesn't anyone remember us bitch slapping People Magazine when we all ganged up and elected Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf as the most beautiful perosn in the world in their first online polling? Leonar

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by phorm ( 591458 )

          I wonder which insurance companies are polling this data?

    • One of the things that helps suicidal people is having community. Facebook isn't great for that but is usually better than nothing, especially if a person's community is far away. If Facebook is going to report people for participating in the community when they feel suicidal, suicidal people are going to be less likely to participate when they are feeling suicidal. So this may backfire in a pretty big way.

      But there are a lot of variables, and it's really hard to say. I would kind of like to see A/B expe

    • Didn't facebook run an experiment last year... only putting negative comments to a group of people to see how they would react? What's the status of that lawsuite? Is this a preemptive 'We do care' before that goes to actual trial? Oh yes... http://news.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]

    • Facebook is a business. Every single offering is an effort to maximize profits.

      We, the members, would appreciate it if Facebook stopped harvesting our posts for the purpose of optimizing their Big Data collection.

      The, "Oh, we're doing this for you," is just bullshit.

      Facebook will be scraping all data, ostensibly looking to be a good Samaritan while selling our shit to the highest biddr including, but not by way of limitation, advertisers and insurance companies, Big Pharma, and the Feds.

  • Would you like help?

    - Get help with writing the suicide letter

    - Just type the suicide letter without help

    [] Don't show me this tip again*
    * greyed out

  • "You matter to us" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 26, 2015 @11:15PM (#49144151)

    Yeah, if you're dead, you can't generate ad and datamining revenue for us, you insensitive clod!

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      1. Facebook user vaguely considers suicide, sends post/message to (limited to, yeah, right) his friends and family suggestive of it.

      2. Facebook's text scanning code detects the post, generates useless machine-generated platitudes on his timeline.

      3. Facebook follows up with the actual business process they care about, selling your personal information to their customers, in this case of particular interest to potential employers and insurance companies.

      4. Potentially-suicidal Facebook user, upon discover

    • Well an anti suicide effort may be laudable but there is an assumption that there is some decent place for people to get help once the suicide is prevented. In many areas in the US there is worse than zero help available. By that I mean that if one gets a referral to a public clinic they may have workers of such low quality or workers who are strangled by lack of money and options for clients that the supposed help is worse than no help at all. We also have politicians that are making things wors
  • Its like forcefully allocating me a psy, and with possibility of errors that might raise lots of bs alarms saying that am about to commit suicide :s

  • I just can't cope with this summary.

  • Focus on "suicide prevention" is obnoxious (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Suicide hotlines and the like are fine to have, but the underlying problem is that we generally suck at helping people in chronically shitty conditions (whether medical, socioeconomic, or otherwise environmental). These big campaigns act like the big problem is convincing people to "get help", but the really big problem is how often the "help" fails to actually help (and no, it's not because Big Pharma is marginalizing psychodynamic therapy or whatever; we have a shitty understanding of most of these proble

    • Unfortunately, what you describe is the result of a very long cultural history of completely misunderstanding mental health. Sometimes it was actually "Big Pharma ... marginalizing psychodynamic therapy or whatever", but more often than not it was simply cultural ignorance.

      The first thing to realize about recovering from depression is that it's a long process, often never really ending. I know someone who has been in therapy for twelve years now, and has made remarkable progress, but still has the "bad days

  • YOUR SITE IS BROKEN! (Score:5, Informative)

    by s.petry ( 762400 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @12:48AM (#49144569)

    I guess that Dice learned nothing from the last Beta roll out. Submissions are gone from the main menu, text is all over the place with clipped characters on the top line and links covering the bottom line, and the buttons are completely broken. Some don't look like buttons at all, just text, others are a solid color with same color text and white borders.

    Just as bad, default content is now coming from two known shady operators taboola and oolaya. If you are not running AdBlock and NoScript don't visit Slashdot until that crap is gone.

    Just like the last Beta no concern or care for users that have been making Slashdot Slashdot for well over a decade. No notice, no feedback, and obviously the only testing that occurred was some Dev located somewhere in the world "claimed" it worked for them.

    Is the goal to chase away the consumers who contribute to make this site what it is?

  • This is just another attempt to control people. What's it gonna be in 50 years ? I'll have my TV call police and save.org 5 days before it thinks I'm gonna commit suicide, based on my behavior in the last one month ? It's "we know what's good for you, not you.".

    Fuck off all of you. I'm gonna live the way I want and I'm gonna die the way I want, and I don't need to facebook and save.org to tell me anything. Come to think of it.. even people close to me. It's MY life.

    These people seriously, just ruined techn

  • How about human dignity? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Evtim ( 1022085 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @02:20AM (#49144889)

    I had the very bad luck of dealing with a loved one with 3 suicide attempts provoked by psychosis. The problems followed heavy depression which in turn was provoked by...unemployment.

    Once the person recovered, she went on restoring her brain faculties and although some portions of [very few] faculties could not be restored to previous levels. Nevertheless the doctors showed us that she has "dropped" from "extremely smart" to "very smart". Some faculties were better than before because she developed them further with brain games and what's not.

    Now guess what happened? 4 years after the recovery there is no job [she is a PhD in physics with good articles and 2 successful post-doc projects]. There is not going to be a job, because noone takes "the risk" of hiring someone with few years interrupted career. It is a vicious cycle....

    Meanwhile, the medical system bankrupted me and made me very sick [I've described it in detail for another thread] so we have no money, no job for her [and mine, although being very advance and interesting does not pay that well], debts and destroyed faculties by the medical system of both of us.

    We need only one type of help, only one pill. Dignity!!! Which comes from sense of self-respect which comes from being economically sound, i.e. at least have a job [forget the whole discussion about the socioeconomic system, the times are like they are, we need jobs, the star trek future is postponed indefinitely due to greed].

    That is what we need -- one "brave" company that wants to benefit tremendously by hiring [likely for less money than usual] someone who is so eager to contribute and restore their place in society....the social system even offers to pay her salary for a few months so that the company gets to evaluate her for free...and still nothing. Unemployment is rising everywhere in Europe, the "crisis" from 2009 will never end, the middle class is shrinking....expect rise in suicide in the whole western world...

    So fuck those initiatives. No Facebook, nor anyone else can do squat about it. In fact Facebook, being greedy corporation which fucks its customers left right and centre, is part of the problem...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bledri ( 1283728 )

      ...

      So fuck those initiatives. No Facebook, nor anyone else can do squat about it. In fact Facebook, being greedy corporation which fucks its customers left right and centre, is part of the problem...

      I am sorry for your predicament and we do live in a world that can seem hyper-focussed on greed. That said, companies are made of people and a lot of people that work at companies do actually try to make the world a better place. Furthermore, regardless of the motivation, getting people help before they actually attempt suicide is a net positive. I think you are "throwing out the baby with the baby with the bathwater."

    • Sir, As an old timer slash dotter I commend you for keeping it together, the economy is improving, with luck The probability of you finding jobs increases. Or if you so choose you can come to the UK here we have no shame of government intervention and have an excellent disability benefits system including mental damage and even for just plain unemployment
  • . . . in 2013, but wasn't an active user of facebook at the time.

    Lives saved by facebook: zero
    Lives saved by oh-shit-this-hurts-way-more-than-wikipedia-told-me-it-would-hurt: one

  • ...and the next phase is scanning for murderers (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...and the next phase is scanning for murderers, and if that proves efficient (or not) the next step will be predictive scanning for crimes in general.. See where it's going? Now - is it a bad thing if such algorithms would have high success ratio?

  • Being told by Facebook that they think I might be suicidal ... would be a trigger that would make me HOMICIDAL. NONE OF THEIR FUCKING BUSINESS what's going on in my head. NONE OF THEIR CONCERN whether I speak to mental health professionals. GO STICK YOUR HEAD IN A PIG.

  • Horrible summary (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    As per usual, the summary for this article is horribly inaccurate. If anyone had bothered to read the third paragraph from TFA (second link), it says:

    Unlike Twitter's tool, Facebook is not automatically monitoring content that is posted on the social network. Instead, users are invited to get in touch if they notice troubling content from any of their contacts, and Facebook will then reach out with the offer of help, support and tips.

    Emphasis mine.

  • It's absolutely sickening how many trolls have responded to this topic with comments about people "just wanting attention" or the world being better off without them, and other such tripe.

    The absolute cruelty and judgementalism of people who've never dealt with chronic depression or mental illness is just shameful.

    This is the "intelligent" commentary of slashdot nowadays?

    Man has this place ever gone down hill. How I long for the days of harmless "trolls" posting comments about Natalie Portman and ho

    • Man has this place ever gone down hill.

      Regardless of whether by "this place" you mean "Slashdot", "this country", or "the world", I have a sneaking suspicion you're right.

    • This is the "intelligent" commentary of slashdot nowadays?

      It's not just Slashdot. What you're seeing is the predictable secondary effects of living in a continual state of cognitive dissonance. It drives people insane. Society is continuing to get generally meaner as people get more scared — and scarred.

  • Are they afraid of losing eyeballs/revenue if they simply serve up some targeted ads for suicide prevention resources?
    This seems a little weird. It depends on the implementation of course, but suppose you're expressing general despair about the future? Say because of environmental destruction, the burgeoning police state, disease, famine or the ignorance and violent tendencies of the human race? Might that rhetoric of hopelessness and despair be misinterpreted?
    I don't mind being in a database of known po

  • A social media company data mining your communications and sharing the results with third parties shouldn't come as a shock to any social media user.

  • Facebook is only taking steps to ensure a steady revenue stream. They must prolong the agony of people who don't want to be here anymore so that there is plenty of drama to suck in the feeble minded. If there's no drama to pull in the tabloid mentality, who's gong to click those ads and spend money?

  • I'd probably be on suicide watch if I used Facebook everyday too.

    Fortunately, I find Failbook [cheezburger.com] much more entertaining.
  • If you could opt in for suidcide watch, I would think this would be useful. But this to me screams, it is okay to psychoanalyze all posts. The first person they "save" especially if it is a bullied teenager, they will look like a hero and have such great publicity. Most people won't mind the all the data mining. You know you have to "think of the children."
  • If you use Facebook then you're basically posting to a public forum. If you're posting suicidal thoughts to the forum then you are likely reaching out for help whether you consciously realize it or not. This is basically an algorithmic way of identifying such behavior. Following up such flaggings with compassion from appropriate parties could keep someone from ending their life. I think it is a great idea.
  • I don't think we can trust Samaritan's motives, Finch. Perhaps Lionel and I can take a look into what's going on while you see what information we can get from our "friend".
    ______
    wow, is this formatting broken or what?
  • They might have to do it because if you revolve your life around Facebook you just might get suicidal. I guess suicide is unintended side effect for too many hours spend on Facebook.

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