14 DAY TRIAL // Posting a suicide threat on Facebook or on any other social network is nothing new or out of the ordinary.
Whether it is because they want to get attention from their followers or simply make a grim joke, more and more people tend to leave such suicide notes online. Normally, messages of this sort are simply ignored by experienced Facebook users who have dealt with such cases before, but there are people who become quickly alarmed and decide to take action.
BBC News talks about one such recent case when an electrician from California decided to threaten to kill himself on Facebook in order to check Facebook’s recently launched suicide prevention tool.
However, things did not go according to plan, as one of his Facebook friends, who was, in fact, a complete stranger in real life, called the police. The man who had threatened to kill himself was arrested and put in a psychiatric institution for almost three days.
Is the Facebook suicide prevention program useful?
Based on his personal experience, Mr. Shane Tusch would totally disagree on this matter. On his Facebook Page, he stated that "Facebook needs to leave suicide prevention to family and friends,” letting everyone know that he had achieved his goal, proving that the suicide prevention tool is not useful at all in an actual matter of life and death.
He continued his rant by saying that he had not been offered any “humane” help and that they had proceeded to perform medical tests on him.
It was probably not the best way to prove his point, but it cannot be denied that Facebook's suicide program is not very effective. Furthermore, his initial post has received some comments from friends trying to dissuade him from committing suicide, but online messages are very unlikely to convince anyone from taking his or her own life.
While Mr. Tusch has expressed his thorough discontent regarding the way Facebook operates in such cases, it is to be seen how Facebook representatives will react to this issue and if any other measures will be taken to improve their suicide prevention tool.