w w w . onlinet h era p y instit u te . com
In most cases, Facebook and Lifeline are probably correct to assume that the email address used is private, but what about the cases where the account is shared or monitored? Says Grohol. “Suddenly [a] thirdparty knows about the suicidal person’s health status without their consent.” Though Grohol did agree that desperate times call for desperate measures and in life-threatening situations such as these, he worried that Facebook’s unilateral decision to breach a user’s privacy created an uncomfortable “Big Brother” situation. “If an email
is okay to save someone’s life, why wouldn’t it be okay to try and stop people from engaging in unhealthy (even life-threatening) behavior in general?” asked Grohol. The legal and ethical implications of the program are vast. Are we ready for a social network company to mediate some of the most vulnerable private moments in our lives? How long will it be until we see our first court case against a Facebook user who commented on a suicidal status but failed to report it? That is, if they could figure out how.
For me, the most pressing issue with Facebook’s suicide prevention initiative is a more practical one. Though I have plenty of daft moments, I consider myself to have an above average amount of Facebook acumen. That is, I can find my way around, I can create and maintain large groups, I can change my privacy settings with relative ease, and I can hide an annoying or offensive status with ninja-like precision. But tasked with reporting a suicidal statement, I found myself completely and utterly baffled. First I couldn’t find the “report” button. When I did eventually locate the button, which sometimes masquerades as an “x” in the upper right hand corner of a post in new timeline-style layout, I was asked if I wanted to “Report/ Mark as Spam…” I don’t mean to be pedantic, but in an urgent moment where someone’s life is on the line, it would seem to me that the reporting process should be streamlined and not so easily confused with reporting spam. Continuing along, more curious than confident, I clicked this link anyway. The status message I was reporting T I L T M A G A Z I N E Jan u ar y 2 0 1 2
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