Yesterday I was out and checked Twitterific and saw that someone I follow tweeted 7-8 hours earlier that he was committing suicide. I didn’t really know what to do so sent him a PM telling him I hoped he was OK. The day got busy and I forgot about it. Then this morning I see his pictures and profile on my new forum site and mention it to my boyfriend who insists I report it to someone. Turns out he had put his home town and real name in his profile and he had entered his date of birth to sign up for the site. I did a geoIP lookup to confirm where he lived and then called the police in his home town and asked them to check up on him. I felt a little weird about calling the police. I don’t know if I would have done it if my bf hadn’t insisted. It felt like I was invading his privacy, but I just mentioned Twitter to the police, not my site.
The police are checking on his well being. I hope he was just being dramatic, but the tweet was so specific I’m pretty sure they’ll call back and say he died. It’s really pretty sad.
Have you guys ever had anything remotely similar happen? When do you guys break privacy? Obviously you would with a court order, but short of that when do you?
Ultimately the term “community” sprang into my head. Even though the site is pretty much completely about sex, ultimately it’s a community and in a community if someone tells you they’re committing suicide you do something about it.
The site’s only been up for a month. Hopefully stuff like this won’t be a regular occurrence!
Re: One of my users tweeted he was committing suicide…
i had that happen once in the comments for one of our featured videos. I saw it right after it was posted. I was about to do the same thing that you did, but finally the guy replied to my email before I had the chance and told me that he had calmed down and gotten his head together. I didnt ask what had precipitated it, but It really had me on the rails for a few hours.
I think that you did the right thing in calling the police - the guy was obviously looking for SOMEONE to reach out to him, and I think that I would have a hard time sleeping at night knowing that I could have done something and turned a blind eye, or worse (if it was on my site) removed the posting so that noone else could have done anything.
Right to Privacy? He gave that up when he posted his plans.
Re: One of my users tweeted he was committing suicide…
Things like this piss me off. It puts everyone in a horrendous position of trying to figure out what is the right thing to do and if it’s even real. Most people who truly want to kill themselves just do it. Doing something like this is selfish.
Re: One of my users tweeted he was committing suicide…
For the record, the tweet was…
took 39 klonopins & hope I don’t wake up! Gonna die even if they pump my stomach. Not a joke. Iâm well int2 my autumns. Love you!
So he had already done the deed and the tweet was just a farewell of sorts. He wasn’t threatening suicide he was saying he already had done it and there was no going back…
Re: One of my users tweeted he was committing suicide…
I think you did the right thing. No matter if he really meant to do something or not, wouldn’t it been awful if he did do something and you had not done anything at all?
Re: One of my users tweeted he was committing suicide…
I agree, you did do the right thing.
This is a very touchy subject for me, and I probably shouldn’t bring this into the arena but I can certainly feel you… My brother committed suicide several years ago. I had found out he was going to do it on his myspace. By the time I found it, I called my dad and told him, it had already been too late. A shot to the head.
In your case this has to be intense. Had you not made the phone call, I am certain you would have felt just horrible. I just wanted to let you know I understand what was going through your head.
One of my users tweeted he was committing suicide…
You did the right thing by letting someone know. I believe I would have acted in the same way, you almost have to get into action if someone cries out like that.
Re: One of my users tweeted he was committing suicide…
Wow that would not be a pleasant message to get. You did do the right thing and it’s definitely good for your karma. I do think sometimes sitting behind a computer it’s easy to forget we’re all human beings, and if that wasn’t a desperate cry for help, nothing is!
