**TRIGGER***
It’s not exactly what Facebook programmers had in mind when they introduced the Facebook Live feature: a suicide broadcast live for all to see. It’s like something out of a voyeuristic Hunger Games.
But this isn’t the Hunger Games, this is the real world. Most people think suicide is one of the most selfish acts a person can commit. But there are underlying circumstances and factors that the suicide may stem from. Maybe the person in question is severely depressed. Maybe they can’t sleep or quiet the mind. It’s hard to have hope when you’re crying hysterically every day. It’s painful.
However, to film a suicide, so that your entire family and even perfect strangers see it, seems heartless and self-serving to me. You may be knock-down-drag-out depressed, but sticking around and toughing it out is the right thing to do. And you don’t need to broadcast it to the world. You should never give up. It’s the sensible choice, and everyone should know what I tell people with major depression all of the time: it gets better. It always does.
A series of suicides have happened on Facebook Live. Kian Shannon Sophie Cañares is just the latest person to die on live video. An Alabama man shot himself in the head on camera back in April, the same month a man in Thailand hanged his 11-month-old daughter before killing himself.
Launched in 2015, Facebook Live has only grown in popularity since this past March, when the streaming platform was extended to PCs. Unfortunately, that popularity has had its down side.
Kian, 21, was a former student at the University of San Carlos in Cebu City, the Philippines. She was spooling an electrical cord around her neck while broadcasting on Facebook Live, when her cousins noticed and rushed to her house. But they didn’t get there in time.
According to her father, Melencio, Kian had attempted to take her own life twice prior, but he and the family were able to stop her.
“We did not see any signs that she had problems,” Melencio told the Cebu Daily News. “In fact she was laughing a day before she committed suicide.”
“We hope her parents will cooperate with us even as they early on appealed for privacy over the matter,” said senior superintendent Joel Doria, chief of the Cebu City Police Office.
Kian’s two-year-old daughter was found sitting on the floor and crying while looking at her.
Her family removed the post from Facebook immediately, but they did not report the incident to police. A citizen of Cebu City reported the news on a local radio station, which resulted in a police investigation.
“Based on the video, there was really no foul play,” Doria said.
“The purpose of the investigation is to find out if the victim had gone through a traumatic incident that drove her to kill herself and she had to stream it live on Facebook,” Doria said. “This is very unusual.”
Her family told the police they wanted privacy and would cooperate with the investigation once Kian was laid to rest.
Facebook has responded in earnest.
“Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen people hurting themselves and others on Facebook — either live or in video posted later,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page back in May. He pledged to hire 3,000 extra workers — in addition to the 4,500 already on duty — to monitor the social networking site for suicides, murders, and other atrocities.
“Just last week, we got a report that someone on Live was considering suicide,” he continued, saying that they were able to reach out to law enforcement and stop the person from hurting himself. “In other cases, we weren’t so fortunate,” he said.
If you are having suicidal thoughts or feel like you might hurt yourself, call the National Suicide Hotline at 800-273-8255.
