The largest social site in the world where people share their good and bad moments their hopes, dreams and fears and, at times, even their saddest thoughts, had been getting suggestions about the need to help people who might be on a path to end their own lives of late. Keeping that in mind, the Zuckerberg owned network has now stepped up its ante against suicidal posts and is infact providing help for users who are asking for the same.
Facebook had first launched its attempt to address content seen to be laden with suicidal tendencies in 2011. It required the site users to share links or screenshots to the suicide prevention page. The process was later updated and made a little easier, as users were allowed to flag a concerning post from within the post itself. Any Facebook user can, on seeing such content, choose to send out a message to the potentially troubled individual, contact another Facebook friend for support, or can be linked with an expert for guidance.
Facebook has announced new tools to assist the near and dear ones of all contemplating suicide. The announcement came at the social media site’s fifth Compassion Research Day.
The networking site has joined hands with mental health organizations like Forefront, Now Matters Now, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, and Save.org besides consulting people who have dealt with self-injury or suicide, to overhaul its prevention tools.
“One of the first things these organizations discussed with us was how much connecting with people who care can help those in distress,” Facebook product manager Rob Boyle and community operations safety specialist Nicole Staubli wrote in a blog post.
Now, if you see someone in distress on the social site, you can report it to Facebook via the “Report” button on posts, though the site owners have not elaborated on that.
“All of these resources were created in conjunction with our clinical and academic partners,” Boyle and Staubli said.
The updates will be rolled out to US based users of the site over the coming months after which the site owners will work on improving the tools outside of the country as well.
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