The internet killed my son
- Thread starter spuriousmonkey
- Start date
Question: Does the website -promote- or does it provide -information- on how to kill oneself?
Prince_James said:
Yes.
From the article: " Paul, 67, from Cornwall, said he did not want to go into what exactly happened, but added: "Records on his computer showed he had been visiting sites explaining techniques on how to kill yourself."
tiassa said:
Proper research? He found pro-suicide websites. If he was feeling suicidal and wanted support for his thoughts, I'd say he researched pretty well.
:bugeye: We're talking about certain types of INFORMATION that are available online, and its ability to negatively influence decisions. People make there own decisions, of course, but these decisions are obviously be affected by a wide variety of factors: age, disposition, and influence, to name a few.
If there was information online about how to better inconpiciously wait around at a park in order to better pick up children when their parents aren't watching, most people would look at the information with disgust and never implement it. But someone with a completely different mindset will read and use the information to better kidnap children.
Some of you will say, "This person would have done it anyway."
How do you know? How do you know that this information wasn't the thing that set him off? And why risk it? This site can ONLY have negative effects. Why, for the love of fucking god, should it be legal?
Same thing goes for the pro-suicide websites.
Anyone can access this information - from the completely sane looking to entertain a morbid interest to a stressed out and emotionally unstable teen who may be inclined to make impulsive decisions.
Coincidentally, the other day a friend of mine tried to kill himself due to the insanity of the first few weeks of college. He didn't die because he didn't "do it right." Now he feels horrible for stressing out friends and family and has recognized and sought help for his impulsive and depressive behavior.
Given his nature and the fact that he truly wanted to kill himself that night, the information provided on these websites may have very well meant his death.
When we are dealing with human mind, we have to take into account the vast array of personalities in the world. The mind can be a very unstable thing. UNDOUBTEDLY, allowing a forum that fucking supports and endorses suicide will better enable an unstable person to make an unfortunate decision.
As questioned with the previous example, why have this information out there, if it serves no purpose but to hurt people?
Supporting this makes no fucking sense.
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You'd have to be a total douche bag or retard to not be able to come up with an effective and relatively painless (if that's your choice) method of suicide.
I mean. Come on.
Nothing more painless and sure than slitting your wrists and thighs in a warm bathtub.
That's old school shit.
The only problem, to my mind, is the fact that if you do this in a way that your body isn't found soon... there's going to be some pretty funky stew in that bathtub.
That'd be the tricky part of suicide, as far as I'm concerned. Because I wouldn't want to leave that big a mess and that means that it has to be done in a place where the body will be found relatively quickly. But not so quickly that you're not dead yet and can be saved.
Of course, some people like leaving big messes. Brains all over the wall and such.
Hell, I used to have a link to this picture of a guy who committed suicide by cutting himself in two with a bandsaw... Freaky shit.
Suicide is a passive agressive attack on those left behind.
A final 'fuck you' to which there can be no retort.
I hate the very idea of suicide short of terminal illness.
Why do some of y'all seem so intent on keep a few people from doing what they want to do? Would you want others to keep YOU from doing certain things that THEY don't want YOU to do? Good god, freedom just don't seem to mean much to y'all, does it?
If that one kid wanted to commit suicide, he's free to do it, with or without the "help" of some silly-assed website! But to curtail the freedom of a whole bunch of people just for the sake of that one lousy kid is nothing short of stupid, insane, idiotic, dumb, imbicilic, moronic, ....and all other similar words!
Get real, y'all ......please!
Baron Max
If that one kid wanted to commit suicide, he's free to do it, with or without the "help" of some silly-assed website! But to curtail the freedom of a whole bunch of people just for the sake of that one lousy kid is nothing short of stupid, insane, idiotic, dumb, imbicilic, moronic, ....and all other similar words!
Get real, y'all ......please!
Baron Max
If the boy had not succeeded in killing himself by using the methods given in the site, <I>then</I> maybe, there would have been reason for complaint (well, of course, not really, since they are not selling anything, so there's no need for them guarantee that their methods would work). Firstly, if someone wants to kill himself, so what? Why not let them do it? Why force themselves to fight it? Since the person who is dying has made the choice alreaady, there is no point in trying to make him revoke it, <I>for his own sake</I>. Because, he's not gonna regret having died after he dies. The only loss, if any, is for those who live, because they lost a loved one. (None of this is applicable if you believe in life after death, with punishment for having killed yourself).
Then of course, there is this aspect of freedom of expression, which is really the only thing you need to consider to say that these sites should not be banned.
Then of course, there is this aspect of freedom of expression, which is really the only thing you need to consider to say that these sites should not be banned.
Perplexity said:
Interesting question in terms of the policies of this specific site; the issue has never come up, so the moderation hasn't really given it much thought. In principle, however, the answer would seem to be, "Yes".
Encouragement is simply that; to actually assist with the act is another question.
Then again, there are also motives to be considered. One who believes suicide a valid option might be able to articulate the case clearly. One who just wants to be a bastard and say, "Quit whining and do it," probably needs some psychotherapy.
Probably.
FallingSkyward said:
Inasmuch as the decision to commit suicide was already made, but given the diverse perspectives on suicide and their general availability via the web, it's a valid question whether or not the suicidal decision was rationally-based or an emotional decision drawn from limited and biased considerations.
Bells
Staff member
Interesting. So that means you will be asking your local politician to censor not only the internet, but books, movies, newspapers reporting suicides (since they usually report what the person did to kill themselves), magazines, etc?FallingSkyward said:
No one knows what influenced this kid to want to kill himself. I think that is what most of you 'ban the sites' supporters are missing. He went to the site because his decision had already been made, not to make his decision.
There is. Hell, just pick up any newspaper when a child has been kidnapped or when there's been an attempting kidnapping and you get all the lurid details of how it was done. Should we muzzle the media as well?
Why in the world do you think he was researching and reading the site in the first place? School assignment? Right... What could have set him off could be anything. Friends at school rejecting him. His father being away for 5 weeks and being so unrreachable that even when his kid kills himself he only finds out about it when he comes home.
From the article:
Hmm the kid was depressed. Could that have had anything to do with it? Gee, maybe we should only force all forms of media to only show happy pictures, movies and tell happy stories in case people get depressed and want to kill themselves.
Then lucky for you, your friend was too much of an idiot to figure out how to do it properly.
Are you for real? So the powers that be should be censoring this thread as well then, since we are merely discussing it. Hell I could come out and say drinking down a jar full of sleeping or blood pressure pills with bourbon could probably do the job well enough. *GASP*.. I made a suggestion that someone who was depressed could read and take literally and try to kill themselves because they wanted to.. CALL IN THE CENSORS!!!
Bells
Staff member
Gee lets see. A happy jovial teen just decides on a whim to visit a suicide site and then just kills himself? Mmmm hmm.perplexity said:
His own father has said that the kid was suffering from depression before he visited the site. I mean honestly, put two and two together and you get, yes that's right, four... not 5, not 3.. but four. Even a person with a severe brain injury can see that when you have a kid who's depressed and starts visiting suicide sites, he's not doing it for fun and light reading.
I also don't get this idealism bullshit ....one lousy kid killed himself, and y'all seem to make it into a major issue. While at the same time that the little fucker was doing himself in, tens of thousands of people were fuckin' murdered all over the world .....and you say nothing about it?
Geez,
Baron Max
Geez,
Baron Max
Bells said:
I think you're missing the main point here.
How many books, movies, or newpapers do you know of that are created specifically to support and encourage suicide, hm? Any? Didn't think so.
But wouldn't it seem logical that pro-suicide websites, designed to influence the decision of people contemplating suicide, would influence a decision to commit the act?
Not at all. I am quite aware that I cannot know the reasoning behind the decision of any mind, save my own. But I can deduce the quite obvious effects that a community that supports suicide would have on an unstable, suicidal person. Namely, feeling influenced by the support he or she is recieving.
Who would have thunk it.
Hah! "No one knows what influenced this kid to want to kill himself" eh? Funny how you seem to know what DIDN'T influence him.
A bit of information to contradict your contradictory "knowledge":
Let's be careful not to mistake assumptions for truth, now.
Why in the world do you think he was researching and reading the site in the first place? School assignment? Right... What could have set him off could be anything. Friends at school rejecting him. His father being away for 5 weeks and being so unrreachable that even when his kid kills himself he only finds out about it when he comes home.
Hmm the kid was depressed. Could that have had anything to do with it? Gee, maybe we should only force all forms of media to only show happy pictures, movies and tell happy stories in case people get depressed and want to kill themselves.
He was depressed, yes. And, he probably went on this site because he was depressed. I'm not debating that. The point is that he found support for his suicidal thoughts, and intructions on effective ways to kill himself. Where would he have found this support if not for these sites?
Clearly, it would have been much more difficult.
Classy!
Are you aware that most attempted suicides don't succeed, because the person "was too much of an idiot to figure out how to do it properly?"
Some of these attempts are of course cries for help, but many actually try to kill themselves. If all of these "idiotic" suicide-hopefuls had accessed the information on sites and gotten an exact description of how to off themselves, they would have undoubtedly had a much greater likelihood of success. I'm contending that this would be a bad thing.
But hey, I don't like when people kill themselves.
Hopefully you understand by now that I am not advocating the censorship of objective information, but of a medium that is driven by a conscious desire to foster suicidal thoughts.
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Baron Max said:
The issue is not that he killed himself, but why. And it's not just about him, either. The computers of many a suicide have been littered with a history of deep involvement with these sites.
If there were pro-murder websites, I can assure you that I'd be against those, too.
Bells
Staff member
How exactly does it encourage it? I seem to recall religious nuts in the past trying to ban certain heavy metal bands because they said the music encouraged the practice of devil worshipping. The point that you are missing is that this poor kid obviously had some problems and seemed to feel that he had no one to turn to so decided to kill himself. No website could encourage someone to do something unless they really wanted to do it themselves. I could read any suicide website, doesn't mean that I'd be stupid enough to go through with it.FallingSkyward said:
If he didn't find it from a website, he would have found other means to figure out how to do it. This is what you seem to not realise. If someone is intent on doing something, they will move mountains to be able to do it. Banning sites such as this one won't make a difference. People committed suicide before there was even such a thing as the internet and they will keep on doing it.
Do a search on suicide and see what you find. I just did a search and all I got was suicide prevention sites. Now some of these sites discuss suicide and how some people have gone about committing the act in the past, but the general message of these sites is to not do it and provide a list of sites and numbers offering help and counselling. Although I did find one little gem of a site:
So you think by banning such sites, you're removing support for suicide and therefore will help prevent it? Shame it didn't work before there was the internet huh? Catholics do not support suicide, so you're saying that no catholics brought up in a catholic family and community commit suicide? Mmm hmmm..
Hey, I just did a search on suicide.. quick I better call someone in case I am somehow influenced to kill myself. Even if there was no internet, this kid would still have found a way. Do you honestly think that he wouldn't have committed suicide if he didn't have access to the internet? If he was feeling that bad that he felt the need to look up how to do it properly, then something was seriously wrong and even if he didn't find a site describing how, he'd have probably tried anyway.
And in the search for the "how to" site, he would have encountered like I did, the countless of help sites and suicide prevention sites. He could watch a movie or read a book that shows or describes a suicide. The fact that a 'how to' site might exist does not mean it encourages, just as showing a suicide in a movie somehow encourages it either. It is up to the individual and how they interpret what they are seeing or reading that matters.
After all, I just read a few "how to" sites and I can assure you I am in no way encouraged to take any of the ways out that they have described. I have no intention of throwing myself into a pit of baboons or rabid wolves for example. Individual interpretation is what matters in the end of it. So because a few might be depressed, those sites should be banned, when others reading them are not depressed and in no way inclined to committing suicide? How about computer games? A select group of people might be epileptic and be affected by loud noises and flashing lights. Should we ban all computer games? How about emergency vehicle sirens and lights? Should we take those away as well because they might affect a few in society?
Where would it end? We ban these websites and what next? Ban books that might have a content of incest or child pornography or merely sex and rape because they might encourage someone to perform those acts? Should we ban or censor this website because discussion of such topics could be interpreted by some as being somehow encouraging?
Wasn't it? And I was serious. Be thankful your friend was too much of an idiot to do it properly. Be very thankful of it.
Very. Sadly my cousin was not an idiot and figured out how to do it properly when things got bad for him. As did my best friend in high school after numerous attempts and therapy sessions that were meant to help her. The thing is, if someone is that intent to do it, no amount of therapy, banning sites and help will stop them from doing it.
Some probably did have access to sites or books, etc and still failed. What many don't realise is that if you really want to do it, you'll find a way, even if it takes numerous attempts. You think banning these sites will bring down suicide rates? Then lets do it. I'm right behind you. If it will stop the thousands who kill themselves from doing so, then lets do it. If not a single person kills themselves in a year, then yes you would have succeeded. But, oh no wait... people killed themselves before there was such a thing as the internet and probably before there was any form of film or printed text. Hmm quite a stagnant little circle isn't it?
I don't like the fact that people do it just because they are feeling a bit down about themselves. But I am also not pro-censorship. If you're going to do it, website or no website, you're going to end up finding a way. That's what it comes down to in the end.