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Facebook AI

Is Facebook's Suicide-Prevention Tool Doing Any Good? (sfgate.com) 99

Posted by EditorDavid from the good-intentions dept.
"Facebook knew there was a problem when a string of people used the platform to publicly broadcast their suicides in real time," reports Business Insider, raising questions about what the company has done since: Facebook has a suicide-monitoring tool that uses machine learning to identify posts that may indicate someone is at risk of killing themselves. The tool was involved in sending emergency responders to locations more than 3,500 times as of last fall. A Harvard psychiatrist is worried the tool could worsen health problems by homing in on the wrong people or escalating mental-health crises... "We as the public are partaking in this grand experiment, but we don't know if it's useful or not," Harvard psychiatrist and tech consultant John Torous told Business Insider last week....

Without public information on the tool, Torous said big questions about Facebook's suicide-monitoring tool are impossible to answer... "It's one thing for an academic or a company to say this will or won't work. But you're not seeing any on-the-ground peer-reviewed evidence," Torous said. "It's concerning. It kind of has that Theranos feel...." Because of privacy issues, emergency responders can't tell Facebook what happened at the scene of a potential suicide, said Antigone Davis, Facebook's global head of safety. In other words, emergency responders can't tell Facebook if they reached the scene too late to stop a death, showed up to the wrong place, or arrived only to learn there was no real problem.

Torous, a psychiatrist who's familiar with the thorny issues in predicting suicide, is skeptical of how that will play out with regard to the suicide monitoring tool. He points to a review of 17 studies in which researchers analyzed 64 different suicide-prediction models and concluded that the models had almost no ability to successfully predict a suicide attempt. "We know Facebook built it and they're using it, but we don't really know if it's accurate, if it's flagging the right or wrong people, or if it's flagging things too early or too late," Torous said.
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Is Facebook's Suicide-Prevention Tool Doing Any Good? More

Is Facebook's Suicide-Prevention Tool Doing Any Good?

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  • No. (Score:3)

    by Quakeulf ( 2650167 ) on Monday May 06, 2019 @05:41AM (#58545240)
    And no.

  • Of course not. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Facebook should kill itself.

  • Works great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday May 06, 2019 @05:52AM (#58545264) Homepage Journal

    It works great when you understand what its purpose is. It's not to help people or improve mental health, it's to prevent Facebook getting so much bad press.

    Now Facebook can say it's helping people and sending emergency services to them, saving lives! It doesn't matter if it actually works.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      And that is exactly the problem with the SJW virtue signaling these days. As long as you do 'something' you're doing good in the intersectional left's eyes, doesn't matter if it's actually harmful, you sent out the right 'signals' so that's what's most important.

      In the mean time, suicide rises even though society by and large is ever more 'accepting' of anything. Perhaps it's not acceptance by your peers, but a good moral and social support fabric that's necessary for people to get the feeling they 'fit in'

      • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        You know, not everything is about SJWs. You seem kinda obsessed.

  • Fuck this second guessing ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pinky's Brain ( 1158667 ) on Monday May 06, 2019 @05:55AM (#58545270)

    It gets moderated by a human twice, the first time at facebook the second time at the emergency responders. This system almost certainly only sends responders when someone outright says he's going to kill themselves.

    Facebook is acting responsibly, comparing this to Theranos is irresponsible.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by I75BJC ( 4590021 )
      I disagree that Facebook, a non-Medical Personnel, should have the right to call out the First Responders.

      Facebook has no person-to-person interaction and no human ability to detect a truly suicidal person from a clinically depressed person from a situationally depressed person from a joker, etc. Even trained professionals have problems telling the difference. Better to let actual human beings make the decision to contact the Authorities than Facebook.

      I've seen plenty of dystopian movies where the Com

      • Facebook staff aren't human?

      • I see why you are concerned, but to say Facebook should *never* have the right to call First Responders suggests that no person has the right to call First Responders on behalf of someone else. Facebook might have to prove some high bar of information -- the person in question uses FB regularly, there's been this constant chatter, there's a post with an actual plan in it, etc. -- but at some point, FB has enough information to act just as a friend for family member might, and a person at FB reviewing that d

  • The real question (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Why are so many Facebook users prone to suicide?

    • Re: The real question (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Who says they are prone to suicide? Its got billions of users, finding 3500 potential suicides is way below the norm so what are you basing that on?

  • Whose fault is it anyway? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dog-Cow ( 21281 ) on Monday May 06, 2019 @06:03AM (#58545288)

    Why is there a problem for FB? Does FB induce suicide? Why does FB have to do anything just because people use it as intended -- to update others about their current status?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's for the same reason we hold DuPont responsible for reporting and preventing suicides that another human may witness while looking through a window made with DuPont glass.

  • ..I want to kill myself. Does that count?

  • So .. Facebook actually created and deployed a tool, which deployed people to a location 3500 times. The journalist who wrote this article is questioning its usefulness, but you would think there would be some way to reach people whose suicides were prevented by these deployments -- or some way to reach the responders whose time was wasted by them.

    It appears that the article hasn't even bothered to gather anecdotal evidence on the topic ...

    • Indeed no evidence that it isn't useful. It seems rather likely the tool has *some* usefulness; even if it had a 90% false positive rate it would still be good to have.

      The author apparently didn't think through the fact that Facebook DOES get some feedback about outcomes. Don't know if it was too late? Maybe the person is already dead? These are people who post on Facebook. Facebook knows if they ever posted again. Heck, Facebook knows what their friends and family posted in the following weeks, and probab

      • Re: Indeed. And Facebook DOES know some outcomes (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        If you false positive on the wrong person, you could instead of preventing a suicide, cause a veteran style PTSD murder situation.

        You also are using those resources that might have gone to a person having a heart attack.

      • "Everyone who's committed suicide raise your hand. " Pause.... "No one? Good, it works -- see?"

  • And let me not-so-guess (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sqreater ( 895148 ) on Monday May 06, 2019 @07:06AM (#58545430)

    "Torous, a psychiatrist who's familiar with the thorny issues in predicting suicide, is skeptical of how that will play out with regard to the suicide monitoring tool. He points to a review of 17 studies in which researchers analyzed 64 different suicide-prediction models and concluded that the models had almost no ability to successfully predict a suicide attempt. "We know Facebook built it and they're using it, but we don't really know if it's accurate, if it's flagging the right or wrong people, or if it's flagging things too early or too late," Torous said."

    Facebook will keep a database of all the Facebook users they consider suicide threats and sell it to big pharma and local psychologists and insurance companies to make a buck. It will have to be given to Homeland Security by law. Parents will be notified. Schools will be given names to "help" the student before he shoots up the school. And, finally, the family dog doesn't play with the kid anymore. All in his best interest. And that doesn't even consider what it would do to adults. After all, we KNOW it will be hacked and become generally available. That's just the way things work today.

    • "Torous, a psychiatrist who's familiar with the thorny issues in predicting suicide, is skeptical of how that will play out with regard to the suicide monitoring tool. He points to a review of 17 studies in which researchers analyzed 64 different suicide-prediction models and concluded that the models had almost no ability to successfully predict a suicide attempt. "We know Facebook built it and they're using it, but we don't really know if it's accurate, if it's flagging the right or wrong people, or if it's flagging things too early or too late," Torous said."

      Facebook will keep a database of all the Facebook users they consider suicide threats and sell it to big pharma and local psychologists and insurance companies to make a buck. It will have to be given to Homeland Security by law. Parents will be notified. Schools will be given names to "help" the student before he shoots up the school. And, finally, the family dog doesn't play with the kid anymore. All in his best interest. And that doesn't even consider what it would do to adults. After all, we KNOW it will be hacked and become generally available. That's just the way things work today.

      There are already consequences if you say in public that you are going to kill yourself. That's enough to get you an involuntary stay in a psych unit. And your parents and school will hopefully be involved if you are a minor.

      • Do you think saying something like: "I'm going to kill myself!" is all there is to the analysis? What if it is a joke? Do you go into the database? Example: "If Trump wins the election, I'm going to kill myself!" Half the Democrat Party would be in the database. Let me point out that half the Democrat Party did not kill itself, apparently.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          Do you think saying something like: "I'm going to kill myself!" is all there is to the analysis?

          ***ALERT** **ALERT*** The automatic comment scanning engine has detected posting keywords indicating a possible self-harm risk by Sqreater.
            **AUTOMATICALLY DISPATCHING AUTHORITIES NOW**

          Erm... pretty much, probably.

          Same deal if someone happens to read out loud the message containing that quoted phrase.

  • Maybe it is working. Maybe I am too cynical. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kqc7011 ( 525426 ) on Monday May 06, 2019 @07:18AM (#58545450)
    When FB sells the info on who might commit suicide to insurance companies. Can't get life insurance, maybe you asked a question on FB?

    • Insurance companies have intelligent contract writers and don't turn down appropriate revenue.
      People complain about insurance companies all the time. Complain about prices but I guarantee insurance companies are way ahead of you in any calculation of risk or value. It's why the least profitable business model is insurance fraud.

  • Out of Charity, just let them die (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Obviously people who want to commit suicide are very unhappy and in pain. It sadistic to prolong someone's suffering just to promote one's parochial "morality".
    Let the suffering individuals find peace in the sleep of death.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday May 06, 2019 @07:54AM (#58545562)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Depends how you define "good" (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Monday May 06, 2019 @08:22AM (#58545672) Journal

    ...is keeping Facebook-addicts from offing themselves really helping us as a species?

  • This is an honest question - not trolling. I fail to understand what it is that gets people hooked into Facebook. This is, no doubt, a shortcoming intrinsic to me - I also thought that Tamagotchi and Karaoke were supremely stupid ideas. Thus, if anybody could explain to the dummy what it is about Facebook that draws people to it like flies to - whatever - that would be much appreciated. Don't get me wrong - I do use Facebook to make punctual comments in sites that require registration, so that all the subse

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nwaack ( 3482871 )
      The little dopamine boost one gets when seeing all the little thumbs up and happy faces next to their posts has a lot to do with it.
    • Having recently disabled my account, I can say that at one time facebook used to be appealing because it connected you to friends and family members that you may have fallen out of touch with. I have quite a few acquaintances and extended family members that I realized I had a lot in common with that I wouldn't have had I not been in touch with them on facebook. Also, the events and buy and sell tools were actually very good.

  • On the other side... (Score:3)

    by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Monday May 06, 2019 @10:38AM (#58546242)
    ... how many teenagers are nudged towards suicide by the taunting and bullying they receive on the Facebook platform?
  • In most countries, concerned calls about a suicide threat by relatives or friends lead to an inevitable visit by police forces. Same effect probably for Facebook suicide detection positives - that might anger some people who were not about terminating themselves.

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