A recent report by WHO shows that suicide cases are on the rise. While the organization faced difficulty when calculating the number of suicide cases in some countries, the statistics for suicide cases which it managed to collect in other countries is utterly discouraging. Apparently, WHO found out that suicide is among the leading causes of death in the world. It estimated that 16 out of 100, 000 deaths are caused through suicide and this affects people within the age bracket of 15 and 44. Sadly, it anticipates that by 2020 suicide cases will shoot to 1 case every 20 minutes, this is enough to cause alarm for awareness among people.
The giant social media site thought it wise to introduce a “life saver” feature within its platform – Facebook Suicide-prevention. Perhaps it could cool down the raging fire of suicide cases that is killing a significant percentage of the young generation. It was a wise thought indeed since this social media site connects people from diverse backgrounds and geographical locations around the world. All eyes now are rolling in Facebook’s direction with hopes that it could save the precious lives of many of our people from suicide.
How the New Facebook Suicide-Prevention Button Works?
Many people who contemplate suicide might find themselves posting their gross idea to the public or friends through their Facebook accounts. It’s because they are engulfed in overwhelming distress and all they need is someone to do just a thing that could make them abort their mission.
If the receiver of such a message finds a clue in it which clearly indicates that the sender is planning to take away his/her own life, they could report it immediately by simply clicking an arrow on the post. Facebook will take that as an emergency and swiftly, it will opt to contact the friend, contact a suicide help line or contact another friend for support, that’s according to a report given by LA Times. This tool was born out of a partnership deal between the social network and organizations such as National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Now Matters Now and Forefront.
Basically, it works on the basis that people who contemplate suicide could be saved by connecting them to other people whom they recognize. Those people should be caring and it could be family members or very close friends/mutual friends. Rob Boyle, Facebook’s product manager commented in a Facebook post that they have employed teams which work round the clock, all days of a week to review any report that shows up. Priority shall be given to the most serious report and help is and resources are addressed to those in distress.
Facebook suicide-prevention was existed way back in 2012, but it wasn’t working effectively as needed. It required users to upload a link or screenshots of the post to Facebook’s suicide prevention page. So it upgraded it to level which a user can report a post into the very post. Currently, this service is only accessible to few users in the US but it has been planned for a wide roll out in the coming months.
