How can this be happening?
I was devastated today to read of a teenager who killed himself live on justin.tv. I’m not going to give the link any more credence. You can look it up if you want to.
The cliff notes are that a forum full of people encouraged him to take his own life, then watched as he died in front of them. Eventually one of the members of the forum traced him down and called police, who arrived on the scene, all live while the forum watched.
How can this be happening? What have we and the internet become? How morbid has our voyeuristic nature become?
Further to this in discussions elsewhere on the web I’ve heard comments such as “he was a troll anyway”, “he would have done it somewhere anyway what’s the big deal?” I’ve cast blame onto justin.tv and suggested they are liable as accessories to a suicide as are the forum members who encouraged him. I was boo hooed down and told that justin.tv cannot be held responsible. Where is the duty of care? Doesn’t anyone see the problem in this?
It is the same logic as not building tall buildings or fencing bridges. People will use whatever means necessary to suicide. I accept that. What I don’t accept is an arena that provides spectators to encourage, torment and dare someone into suicide. This is the crucial difference. Why didn’t these forum members offer help to this boy? Who cares if they thought him a troll, he was a god dam human being who deserved common care.
Who have we become as a people that we can so easily shrug this off as just another internet incident and just keep walking without asking some serious questions and demanding action? How can we stop this blood lust?
Can we not talk and interact with each other as humans with care and compassion rather than entertainment value alone?
In my view justin.tv has gone way beyond the limits here and I for one am asking a complete boycott. As parents we need to educate our children that watching someone die, live on the internet, is not what the internet was intended for, nor should be used for. Social networking is for the spread of information.
I can hear the devil’s advocates saying that this is information and who am I to be the world censor? Well losing a life, any life, to suicide is unacceptable to me and it is particularly unacceptable and deplorable that it is done live and to an eager audience. Is this what I want my children to be able to have access to on the internet? NO I DO NOT.
As parents and citizens, with a world and life view that has many years experience combined, it is our duty to the ones that follow us, to forge a standard and elevate the internet to a safer environment to participate in. Turn the tide and imagine yourself in an accident, dying on the road, and millions tune in to watch you take your last breath and blog about it. Imagine your family, your children, your grandchildren unborn, yet able to watch your demise. We cannot become this callus as a race.
We simply cannot.
November 21st, 2008 at 7:09 am
I cannot agree enough with you. I was totally disgusted and saddened to read this story today. I only wonder how the people who this lad left behind will ever understand this, i only know what i have read in the news and on your blog, and everyone involved in this pack encouragement will go to bed at night, they will be alone, and they will think about what they contributed today - i hope at least one of these people will ask themselves why didnt i say something, i could have changed this?
November 21st, 2008 at 7:11 am
I agree that suicide is not something to take lightly and appreciate your concern. I believe as well that those people who watched this unfortunate event have their share of the blame to take. However I do not believe that beacuse of this you can ask for a boycott on a service which is not intended for this use anyways. Monitoring and moderation are the way to go. If less that acceptable pictures were posted in Flickr, you would ask the staff to take them down, not to shutdown the service. Although I will not give more importance than needed to this tragedy, I will continue to appreciate life and help others in need everyday.
November 21st, 2008 at 8:56 am
If there is an audience, it will exist. I’m asking us all, not to be that audience.
November 21st, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Though I agree suicide is tragic, I don’t blame Justin.TV. It’s no more there responsibility than anywhere else that someone chooses to commit suicide. Honestly, I’m more surprised that this doesn’t happen more often and tend to think that the crowd of watchers actually takes folks off the edge as much as pushes them over.
I would suggest instead that the service perhaps offer optional moderation as a pay fee, and that unmoderated shows be marked as such. That’s a fairer suggestion in my eyes.
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:51 pm
1) Justin.tv is not liable under the Safe Harbor section. As long as they did not know it was happening they are not held liable for what transpires on their services.
2) As for the users, they had no information to give to the police (one of the reasons it took so long for the police to arrive) and they live all over the globe so they really can’t be charged with anything.
3) He took the pills and laid down before anyone really was in the room. So it really wasn’t egging him on as much as making sick jokes while looking at his dead body.
4) I do not believe censoring anything just because it may save one person’s life is worthwhile. Someone dying is bad, however, they chose that out of their own will but not being able to speak what one wants is much more harmful to society.
November 23rd, 2008 at 6:50 am
Fair enough. Again, though, you totally miss my point. What have we become that there is audience to watch death on the internet?
November 29th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
This is very sad and I couldn’t agree more with the author.
However, the suicide is gone and done. The people they leave behind to suffer over this are the victims as much as the one that committed suicide. His family will forever live with ‘what more they could have done.’ The people that watched will suffer as well.
December 7th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
An audience?
We’ve just become a more… interactive audience. We’ve made the jump from watching a television report explaining it, to watching it real time.
Yes, it’s a shame. The people who care as strongly as you do about this, they won’t be the audience. It’ll be people who are indifferent or malicious towards act such as these, that will be egging him on.
It’s a shame. I understand that. It saddens me to live in the world where I can watch hundreds of real people die, interactively on the internet. It saddens me that at this very moment I have access to hundreds of snuff films and shock sites, and that every single person with internet access does too.
Again, though. It isn’t the medium that’s the problem. At some point society will have to take a hard look at itself, re-evaluating what we feel to be social norm. And at that point, I hope that views like yours are not ignored.