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Everytime this happens, people try to ban/restrict/control something whether its guns, drugs, alcohol, etc etc. In the end people have to be responsible for what they do, we cant control everyone's behavior.
I know someone who was in that specific chat room a the time.
If you read the actual blog articles written about it from the people who were there they say that it wasn't apparent at first that he was committing suicide.
People were watching him ingest the drugs over his webcam. He had been in that irc channel before claiming that he had done this before and even posted that night that he "was hardcore". It was a pill poppers channel i think.
Several people at several points told him to stop or slow down and several told him to seek help immediately. Someone actually did call the cops, but got nervous that he'd be called a participant and "talked his way out of [the phonecall]".
This dad is rightfully distraught, but this is a grievance kneejerk reaction. He's at the anger stage of loss. He'll get past it.
google it
You're smoking crack.
This dad is talking about censoring the internet.
Allowing some content and not others.
REGULATION.
Maybe not the same censor in both cases, but regulation none-the-less.
Outright censoring the internet is a completely different issue from letting commercial interests have control over how wide the "tubes" are which is what the net neutrality is fighting against.
As I said, a simple google would have told you that. They're both important issues, but they are not the same thing.
I read the kid was severely bipolar, so he was likely not in his right mind, so it was not his fault. The people egging him on should be extremely ashamed of themselves, even if it wasn't clear that he was being serious.
The internet was a factor -- we have to recognize that -- though there is probably nothing that can or should be done legally. If people were viewing it live, they would have been more ready to intervene and less ready to egg him on. The extra detachment the internet provides allows strangers to act more callously and cruelly than they would normally in real life -- you see it all the time in comments and blogs.
There's nothing to legislate, but this incident should be a teaching moment for parents whose children are getting old enough to be online. Kids need to know that their actions have consequences, even if those actions are done via the internet.
After he did the main batch he went digging around his room for stashes of drugs...THATs when people really started to tell him to stop and the kid called 911 and hung up.
In this situation, the kid had threatened suicide in the past. Second, people DID call the police. Maybe more did not because of an online bystander effect. Yes, it is appalling that people would encourage suicide, but it's not something new. From what I remember in Social Psych, people are more likely to encourage suicide if there are a lot of people around because it affords them anonymity. So, it's not surprising that people online would egg the guy on.
There are a lot of attention whores on the internet. It's not a stretch of the imagination that these people might have thought the kid was doing it for the attention. He didn't take the pills in front of everyone on the web cam, and he was breathing for hours in his bed.
Also: the guy didn't threaten to kill himself 12 hours before he did so. He posted online then went to lay in his bed while the cam was on. The 12 hour gap occurred because people didn't call the police quickly.
The 12 hr gap comes from people taking hours to call. He didn't post something online then, 12 hours later, overdosed
I recognize that this is the same generation that believed in hope and change, and provided the boots on the ground, the knocks on the door and the calls on the phone to elect Barack Obama president. But just as there's a widespread understanding among young adults today that "mean people suck," there's also a psychopathology among others that finds the Web an outlet for a shared sense of sick community. It's probably not even a generational issue at all, but the fact that people of good will can find each other online easier than in the physical world...and people of ill will can do so as well.
The answer isn't policing the Internet, any more than we should police the conversations people have in the cafeteria or their dorm rooms. But a profit-driven culture of death isn't just a right-wing meme aimed at pro-choice protesters. It's also found in the "Faces of Death" videos that made the rounds on college campuses 20+ years ago, in the images and videos (and, more importantly, the cavalier comments about them) some soldiers post from Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the kind of cruetly you find online far too often.
http://www.ajc.com/services/content/printeditio...
Remember, folks, this POS was the one who defeated disabled multi-amputee Viet Nam Veteran Senator Max Cleland by comparing him to Osama bin Laden!
edit: What really disturbs me about all this is the way many people were egging him on with comments like "do it fa**ot" and now appear to show no remorse what so ever.
If the tragedy attracts attention through the media, this "doing something" sometimes translates into a lot of public hand-wringing (especially by politicians and Official Media Hand-Wringers like that Obnoxious Blonde Lady on Headline News and / or Media Hand-Wringer-in-Chief Howard Kurtz).
But the fact is: Sometimes things are just tragic. My uncle specialized in trials having to do with neo-natal fatalities due to medical complications, and sometimes doctors were at fault, but other times ... it was just meant to be ... and nothing in the world would have made any difference at all.
I really feel for this family. It's bad enough to have this happen, but to have it happen in such a ghoulish and public way is completely unreal. I think it's beyond my capacity to fully understand what this family must be going through.
Sometimes tragedies are just tragedies.
I'd imagine the family is very sad and upset and definitely wants "something" to be done and I sympathize with that emotion. Its a tragedy, but I don't see what kind of regulations could be implemented. At least regulations that don't set a bad precedent and end up doing more harm than good in the long run.
I moderate two private, members-only fitness forums, and had to deal with a crisis situation too - fortunately, it was much more limited in scope (and consequences). One of the male members was evidently carrying on a private, behind-the-scenes flirtation with a female member via the forum "private message" system. Her husband found out about it, hit her, and stormed out of the house. She immediately contacted the guy, to tell him what had happened, and to plead with him to destroy her pics and messages - she was "sick and scared" of what her husband would do when he got back.
So what did the schmm**k do? Sent a message to ME, as if it was my responsibility to do something about a situation that I had - until that moment - no idea was even occurring, involving someone who lived 2,000 miles away, and who I knew only by her online username and e-mail address. Fortunately, I was able to shake the guy down for sufficient personal details (full name and city of residence), so that I could call the police in her area, and give them a tip on a possible DV in progress.
It was a long distance call, and it took a certain amount of explaining to the cop on the other end, to get her to understand who I was, and how I came to learn about the situation I was reporting. I could not give her an address, unfortunately, as the only person with those details lived in the UK and was - at that point - fast asleep, and I had no means to contact him in an emergency. Fortunately, the police were able to track her down with the info I gave them - and it turned out she was in a different jurisdiction, So my police contact called me back and asked me to forward the messages I had describing the situation, so they could forward the info to the appropriate people. This meant creating screen captures of the PM messages and attaching them to an e-mail, which I then sent to the address I was given.
It took a good 90 minutes from the time I first learned of the incident to the time the appropriate authorities had what they needed to act. I have no idea how long the guy who originally contacted me was sitting on the info - so it might even have been longer. Had the woman in question been in a life-threatening situation, she'd have long since been dead or seriously injured.
I can't blame the father in this story for being shocked by the indifference on display...but I don't see how greater regulation would have put an end to it. Even if someone had taken the young man seriously and wanted to act, it would have been difficult in the absence of personal details that would have enabled her/him to contact the right people. The anonymity that protects people from unwanted contacts also prevents them from getting help in a timely manner if they need it.
The viewers of this act are not unlike gawkers looking at a car accident. Most continue to stare without offering any assistance. Unfortunately, any help arrived too late to save this person's life.
I agree that this doesn't argue for regulating the internet, but it really is not necessary to speculate about whether the kid would have found some other way.
being drafted to a bad war. That is mainly why the draft was not reinstated
during this Iraq war. Chimpy's people knew it would be the end of the GOP
forever and another counter culture revolution again. But of course they
also had no clue as to how to govern anyway and look where they leave off
now.
I met a lot of people who were totally dissatisfied with the grasping for material wealth during that period as personified by their parents. Some may write it off as just youthful rebellion, but I saw it much differently.
had very old money, but most of it was lost during the 1929 crash. After
WW2, I think my family wanted to shower us with material love...i.e. you
should have seen some Xmas mornings where one could not walk through the
living room because Santa had dropped an entire ToysRus on the floor. At the
time, of course, we loved this. We were the Cleavers who turned into the
Addams family via a loss of a sister from cancer and then the death of my
father from that stress couple of years later. For some reason, with all the
spoiling, I somehow got a strong work ethic and also a strong sense of
"noblesse oblige" for charity work, etc. I wanted to be a teacher from the
age of five and have been one for thirty five years. My life's success has
been measured in SATISFACTION, not material goods or wealth. But as an 18
year old in 1968, there was no way in hell I would go to 'Nam for LBJs
folly. And Stonewall a year later solidified my leftist anarchist brain. The
sadness in my life comes only from the fact that the counterculture
revolution meant nothing these last thirty years since Ronnie Raygun. Maybe
now there's a glimmer of hope with our new President and his brilliant
cotterie.
and they will NEVER look at themselves initially. it's always everyone else. was the dad to blame for his son's suicide? no. the son made his choice. it's senseless and the dad is looking for an easy scapegoat, when really...no one is to blame except the kid who killed himself.
Why would a parent, knowing their child is on meds and unstable, permit him to become a virtual hermit in his own home? I mean, come on, twelve hours on the net in his room, holed up, and no concern by the parents? Sometimes parents take "privacy" just too damned far and become complacent. They sometimes confuse age with maturity. I raised 2 kids and their rooms NEVER had locks on them, I simply knocked when the door was closed and respected their privacy--to an extent--after all, I was the one paying the bills and was the parent. Once even when my working adult son (22) was going through a bad patch with drugs some years ago, I opened the door after he refused to answer, and he was laying in bed smoking crack. He stopped that day and never touched the shit again, as he told me years later. My opinion of him and love for him was more important than the drugs.
It's not the first time this kind of thing has happened, and it probably won't be the last.
"Biggs, who has said he was at work during the episode, said he had not known about his son's online presence."
"Some users told investigators they did not take him seriously because he had threatened suicide on the site before."
For me it's yet another example of a parent not knowing enough about what is going on in his child's life. Granted 19 isn't really a "kid" but still ...
But that doesn't mean society and the special interest groups looking for emotional hooks have to buy into the grief process. People in real risk of suicide are unpredictible and even trained professionals have a hard time telling which ones will actually make an attempt.
But damage to our rights and freedoms can easily be done by people willing to take advantage of people's grief.
I once had a middle aged bipolar neighbor who had a coffee table covered with her bottles of PRESCRIBED meds, plus loose pills of God-knows-what. I had to feed her cats whenever she was in the bobby hatch and scooped up the pills before the cats ate them. Mentally ill neighbors and relatives can be high maintenance; if my neighbor had killed herself, I would have only worried about her poor cats. To be blunt, the herd just gets thinned out.
He could have done this on his front lawn. Whom would we blame then?
I'm an admin for a fairly popular message board, and let me tell you, there are members there who I would never be able to find even if I desperately wanted to. Not only that, but I don't think it's the admin's responsibility to babysit the entire goddamn membership. People need to start taking responsibility for their own idiocy.
I don't buy that the answer to any and all horrible things is even more bubblewrapping. People are going to do stupid shit. They do even stupider shit when they think they're perfectly safe and protected from their own stupidity. Furthermore, in this case, we're talking about the Net here. The minute some kind of restriction is put in place, geeks all over the planet set to work finding a way around it and being geeks, don't stop until they do.
By the way, I did not realize you no longer had to register to leave a comment. I thought one of the great things of blogs was that "any-person" who is not "connected" could leave a comment. I am now glad that we can leave comments without registering. OH, you still have to leave an email.... that is not good. Why can't it be anonymous?
I'm sure his family is terribly grief stricken and are looking for any way to make sense of it, anything or anyone to blame and thinking of all the ways it could have been prevented. Unfortunately however immediately blaming the medium and calling for new regulations does little to address the real problems and underlying issues that caused this tragedy.
The fact the young man in question had made public suicide threats in the past wasn't very surprising given the method and execution he chose when he did succeed. Using an overdose as the method in a suicide is one of the least effective at actually accomplishing it but one of the best methods at the cry for attention pseudo attempt. Add in the very public suicide "note" online and the exhibitionist web cam to record the whole thing and it's easy to see this young man really just wanted attention, to be stopped and told/shown people cared. It's a terrible shame because more than likely deep down he probably didn't want to succeed but even the cry for attention half hearted attempts can eventually succeed when they're allowed to make the attempt.
In the end there are a lot of factors that allowed this to happen and railing against the internet doesn't do much if anything to address them. After reading some of the vile comments from those forums from posters egging him on, laughing about it and enjoying themselves as he died in front of them I would be a lot happier with addressing how spiteful and ill tempered people are and hoping for a change in the basic human decency and compassion in the world rather than a change in internet regulations.
It is also sad to see the father try to find someone or something to blame..for if he cannot, he must look to himself. He may not be able to do that.
Suicide is a mostly a way to punish those left behind. It is taking the easy way out and leaving a lot of people broken and damaged behind. A way to make those left behind..."Pay" or "be sorry".
As a child, I remembered pieces and parts of several past lives..and as I believe we get our lessons until we get them right, it gives me great sorrow to feel that this lost soul, will have a hard way to go until he learns,
To leave before the end of our natural life, is like walking out of a movie after the first half hour...we will miss the middle and the ending....and must return until we get it right.
We live in a universe of change...and it might help to realize..that even the bad things in our lives must also change..and go away..if we but give it time.
As a child of abuse..I thought of suicide and even attempted it a time or two. Thank the Creator that I did not succeed..I would have missed out on such a wonderful rich and exciting life.
Do not give up before the end..dont give up the sinking ship until after it goes down..and do not blame yourself for the path another choses.
peace
Wakien
There are more pressing problems in the world than regulating the internet.
If the father wants to do something let him volenteer at a crisis center.
Can you regulate the internet to stop these events? Not really. Even if somebody registers with legitimate information on a website (many people don't use real names, addresses phones etc..) and you put a button on the website that says "call 911 for this user" locating that person in a timely manner to stop them is next to impossible.
In addition, who would we call? The internet affords us anonymity through internet sign-on names and location. The internet is vast and it is not up to each server company to police our behavior. It ultimately comes down to policing ourselves and when we cannot recognize our need for help, we can only hope those around us are more aware of our despairs to offer the support.
The internet can be a wonderful place of stranger support, knowledge, ideas, and many other resources. Although, we must also recognize it resides dark places and like all masses of people brought together. There is both good and bad among the group. It is up each of us to take our own accountability to be able to recognize the differences, providing we come equipped with the skills in the first place.
My deepest condolences for the father who has felt his heart ripped out and I hope he eventually finds a way to cope with this life altering loss