Facebook, the world's largest social network, has become a place for many of its 1.3 billion active users to share deeply personal thoughts. When users see posts from people who are directly threatening suicide, they should contact local emergency services immediately, Facebook says. Still, the company wants to improve how it responds to reports of suicide threats. It wants to provide better information to people in need and also to users who submit reports after seeing troubling posts.
If a person is reported as being at risk of suicide, the next time they log in to Facebook, a new message box will appear, perhaps saying, "Hi Gerald, a friend thinks you might be going through something difficult and asked us to look at your recent post." From there, Facebook will provide a way to connect the person with a friend, or a mental health expert at the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
The person suspected of being at risk of suicide must be reported by another user for this process to occur. Facebook does not have any tools to automatically detect people at risk of suicide.
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Category(s):Suicide Prevention
Source material from PC World
