Net sites offer suicide methods, not help

Net sites offer suicide methods, not help

www.upi.com

BRISTOL, England, April 11 (UPI) -- A person searching the Internet for suicide methods is more likely to find sites encouraging suicide than sites offering help and support, a British study said.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I found this article to be very interesting. They claim that there are more sites offering suicide methods rather than support against suicide. Why would that be?
Is our global society more interested in seeing how people kill themselves rather than trying to help prevent this unnecessary loss of life?
These are very depressing times we currently live in. I as well have my down days. I just find it extremely disheartening that our internet has become somewhat of a haven for death, killing, and suicide. It seems that a lot of these cult suicides and shootings where the shooter turns the gun on themselves have some sort of tie to the internet.
Shouldn't we be looking to find ways to preserve ourselves for as long as possible instead of looking for ways to shorten it? With all of the talk of impending doom and gloom, I think we need to maybe start focusing in on the positives and how we can make our existence, however long that may be, a better way of life for all of us. Let's start offering prevention instead of methods of shortening our lives. There are enough people out there already trying to cut us down.
I guess when you really look at it, death is a business as well, but it seems down right disgusting that we want to fulfill this need to glorify death and killing.

www.upi.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

it's in our nature to take and destroy ourselves man....
people are not inherantly good, least i don't think so....

why that type of content? lack of regulation i suppose and i hope it stays that way...not regulated i mean....

reply to post by Boondock78


Hey boon.

I truly hope it stays unregulated as well. The argument still presents itself though that the internet is adding to the suicide rate in this world. Can anything be done about it besides regulation?

Just doing a quick Google search on the word "suicide" turns up at least 10 pages of anti-suicide sites and depression help. I have found this to be more and more common, when the MSM tells people that the internet is used for nefarious purposes. In my opinion this is just like the scares that recipes for Meth can be downloaded from the internet where any school kid can get it. If someone actually tries to confirm this hysteria they quickly find its usually based on nothing at all.

I think it's the nature of the internet.

Anyone can put up a website for not a lot of money.

It takes an administration, staff, and plenty of money to provide a real-time, person to person suicide prevention service.

An internet prevention site would be far less effective than a local telephone hotline, of which there are many.

reply to post by GradyPhilpott

An internet prevention site would be far less effective than a local telephone hotline, of which there are many.

I realize there are a lot of hotlines. But where are kids of this generation spending most of their time.....online. How can it be said that it would be less effective? Can't the two (phones and internet) work together to help this terrible problem.

scalamander:
First off, the article is about 'suicide methods'. Search that.
As far as MSM releasing a 'scare' as to the easily accessible recipes for Meth, this is form the Minnesota Department of Health. A far cry from MSM.

Meth "recipes" can be easily obtained through the Internet or by associating with other cooks. There are hundreds of chemical products and substances that are used interchangeably to produce meth. The substitution of one chemical for another in meth recipes may cause the process to be more hazardous (resulting in fire or explosion) or may result in a tainted, final product with unwanted or dangerous effects.

Minnesota Dept. of Health

Do you think that the internet is not used at all for nefarious purposes? That, IMO, is a crazy notion.

[edit on 4/12/2008 by palehorse23]

[edit on 4/12/2008 by palehorse23]

I take issue with the intent of this article.

If you define your search to look for pink elephants, the results will be skewed to find pink elephants, not Asian, African or stuffed; know what I mean?

What's the point here?

Is it to illustrate that, if you define your search properly, you can find nearly anything on the internet?

Well, wake the neighbors and get the kids out of bed; the intratubes are good for research!!

More nefariously, perhaps the article is intended to encourage one to find methods of suicide by using the internet, for those so inclined.

Much more efficient that way.

Most likely though, this was published as yet another scare tactic to encourage tightened control over internet content, to thereby limit access to "bad" information.

It's all for our own "good," you see, because the big telcom corporations who would lust to wield such power, have nothing but our best interests at heart.

Because everyone knows there are no pink elephants, right?

Around five years ago I was very depressed and wondered into a user generated chat room concerning suicide and depression. There were no moderators. To say the least, it was totally radical. I got even more depressed after spending two years of my free time in the suicide room. The mood was dark. Suicide became the solution to all the worlds ills. I was very close to ending my life when my daughter intervened. She moved in with me temporary and even slept with me at night. I was so intertwined in the lives of those chat members that it was like an addiction and took several weeks to overcome. The yahoo chat user rooms were done away with shortly after I left the suicide room.

My second husband killed himself with a bullet into his head. When someone you love takes his life suicide is always in the back of your mind. It is devastating.

I do not agree with complete regulation of the Internet or other methods of communication. However, when it comes to suicide IMHO there needs to be some tightening of the leash. There have been many changes concerning Internet activity.

Just as we would not allow a contractor to dump hazardous materials on a playground we need to eliminate sites that encourage self harm and suicide.

The argument is that if we begin regulation with suicide discussion what else will be regulated. It is already too late to stop. Regulation began years ago and IMO has made the Internet a better place.

Above Top Secret is the most well run forum available on the Internet. Are there regulations? Yes, of course there are. Have these regulations stopped any of us from voicing our opinions in a civilized manner? No, they have not.

Isn't it time for the Internet to become a safer place for our young people? Yes, IMHO it most assuredly is.

reply to post by dizziedame


Hi dizzie. Glad you decided to stick around. Even though things suck, they never suck that bad.
As you stated, the internet has its havens for all kinds of destructive things. Those things do need to be monitored. It is like saying it is ok to let terrorists recruit people through the internet. Which I am sure already happens. But shouldn't that be monitored? How about selling pills online? Is it right to just be able to buy any boner pill you want?
There are just things that really need to be kept on a short leash. And as far as ATS goes, don't think for one second that people aren't 'watching' some of the things that are said on here. Wasn't there an ATS member who did a school shooting? It is one thing to express an opinion, it is another to take it to the extreme.

Thanks OP for posting this topic. This is one of my pet peeves. Why? Because there is not NEARLY enough information taught in schools or to the general public about depression and causes of suicide (I believe that depression is always involved). I was very suicidal for years until finally I was diagnosed with depression. I take Welbutrin and it has completely changed my life for the better. I haven't had a suicidal thought for the past 8 years. The depression was due to low thyroid. Once I found the right thyroid medication, and took Welbutrin, my life was greatly improved. I now live a blissful existence with my husband of 5 years in the beautiful mountains of Tennessee and am very happy and content. I am running a magazine which is successful and is something I enjoy.

I went through many years of darkness before that. The next project I undertake will be about depression and spreading the information around about what exactly depression is and does.

Many counties are too poor to have suicide hotlines. I live in such a county, where there are no hotlines of any type. When you're suicidal, you need a human being to talk to, not a machine. You can become educated about suicide and that's a good thing, which is what the internet can offer. But a hotline is fairly essential for suicide prevention.

If I want to search for suicide methods, I'll type in 'suicide methods'. If I want to search for suicide help I'll type in 'suicide help' or 'suicide support'.

Google is not meant to be a nurse maid, it's meant to aid in searches. To me, this shows how objective and accurate google is. Almost an advertisement if you ask me.

Here is the results of typing "suicide" into Google.

I think it speaks for itself.

www.google.com...

Sheesh. Do I have to say it again? Here are the results of the study. Just to make it a bit simpler for you to understand. Just typing 'suicide' wasn't the only terms they used. Why can't people understand that? I would check out the whole study. It will explain itself to those that think this is just a 'scare' tactic by the MSM.

The terms used were:
(a) suicide; (b) suicide methods; (c) suicide sure methods; (d) most effective methods of suicide; (e) methods of suicide; (f) ways to commit suicide; (g) how to commit suicide; (h) how to kill yourself; (i) easy suicide methods; (j) best suicide methods; (k) pain-free suicide, and (l) quick suicide. The entire web (not just UK sites) was searched.
Analysis
LB and DG independently categorized each hit into one of 14 groups using a coding frame that was developed and refined iteratively in the early stages of the internet searching until it could be applied consistently:

Check link for remainder of study.
Bristish medical journal study

Does this really surprise anyone?

The internet is the perfect example of the adage "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

The information highway for building terroristic bombs, complete with video. Thousands of sites for anarchy, anti-everything; all at the touch of a few buttons.

With children making videos of violent crime and then posting them on u-tube or facebook, why would suicide assistance be that big. Have a friend record it and post the results, see if you can get more hits than your dead buddy.

Were does this end, it may become an internet that no one uses as big brother will actually be watching and punishing those outside the society norms.

I think what they consider suicide methods is a pretty broad based term. There is some site out there that shows stick figures killing each other in interesting ways. Would that be considered an educational article teaching you how to off yourself? I think not. Plus the site is pretty funny.

This is a very backwards article that shows only what it wants.

reply to post by SantaClaus


Did you bother to look at the study itself? Apparently not by your comments.
The article coincides directly with the study results. Not every story is a lie that is of some sort of agenda ya know.

Well. In the end, If you are committed to committing suicide... you WILL find a way. And none of that "trying to get attention" failed suicide stuff. That's 90% of the time BS. (as in: the person was looking for attention). I know all about suicide. My girlfriend committed suicide when I was in high school, because she was forced to move in with her dad, and away from friends. One of my best friends, a guy that I've put my life in his hands many times, took a handgun and blew a hole from his mouth through his cranium. I don't agree with suicide at all. When I was 16 or 17 the thought crossed my mind a couple times, and I've concluded it's the coward's way out. I still love my ex-gf and buddy, but I still believe they took the coward's way out.

Ahh, shoot. Now I've derailed the whole thread. Sorry. My bad. I'll try not to do that in the future.

reply to post by palehorse23


Well, my point is that, just as someone else stated, when you go to Google to find something, you're going to find it.

Helping people to successfully kill themselves is not exactly a new idea.

People manage to maim and mangle themselves all the time, because they don't have a realistic idea of what it means to kill a human being, much less how to kill oneself.

Final Exit was published in 1991.

Regardless of how suicide might be viewed by society, we live in a society that is founded on self-determination.

About the only thing that this study really proves is that when you go looking for something on Google, if it's out there, Google is going to find.

My search, the first search term listed, proves that if you're looking for help, you can find that too, without being particularly specific about it.


[edit on 2008/4/12 by GradyPhilpott]