A young man committed suicide in front of a virtual audience. 12 hours before the incident he broadcasted the suicide plan on his blog. Before committing suicide he corresponded with members on the site. He received questions like: How many pills are you going to take? The virtual audience members were filled with mixed reactions. Some encouraged the young man to kill himself while others tried to persuade him otherwise. Some viewers believed it was a hoax. Abraham Biggs, a 19 year old college student, was not kidding. He was found dead in his father's bed. Approximately, 1500 viewers witnessed the suicide, the police were not alerted until 12 hours later.
After I read the article, I had to take a breath of fresh air. I am currently speechless. I question Abraham's motives. Why did he need an audience? If he had no access to a web cam what other approaches may he have taken? Was he currently taking medication for his Bipolar disorder? Did the virtual audience comfort him during the process? Abraham interacted with other virtual members, is the world really that cold-hearted? As I recall the Virginia Tech incident, I am reminded of the young man who videotaped himself before going on a killing rampage that ended in his own suicide. Is this similar? If not how is this different? Is there a connection between Abraham's suicide and people who jump off bridges?
Montana Miller, an assistant professor of popular culture, was not surprised by the webcam suicide given the way teenagers share certain aspects of their life on social networks. She said if teenagers did not have the option of documenting or recording an event in their life, nothing would seem worthwhile. A lawyer in Florida stated that the website is not in trouble for negligence and the members of the blog will not be held liable for their comments and lack of action.
In Japan, people are posting suicide pacts online. A group of people set a time in which they will commit suicide together. Japan reports that the trend is growing and will continue to grow. Thirty-seven of the 91 individuals who committed suicide were female and forty-four were male. Of these individuals, forty percent were in their 20's, thirty-nine percent were in their 30's, while eight between the ages of 10 and 19 committed suicide after signing an online death pact. In South Korea, the government wants to regulate the internet but there are several laws that ban this idea. The South Korean government hopes to require members of chat rooms to use their real name so that it will be quicker and easier to punish cyberattackers. The floor leader of the Grand National Party wants to "keep cyberspace from becoming a public toilet wall." Opposers of this initiative believe the government is trying to suppress the Internet public opinion that is critical of the government.
Researchers from the University of Bristol, Oxford, recreated a typical web search by someone looking for details on suicide. They used 12 different search terms in four popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN. After sifting through the results, they analyzed the top ten sites from each of the twelve search terms. The search results: 240 distinctive sites about suicide with just under half providing information about how to commit suicide, one- fifth of the hits were recurring sites that promoted suicide, 13% of the sites were dedicated to suicide prevention, and only 12% actively discouraged suicide. Sites that offered suicide prevention detailed ways to commit suicide. Someone looking for details on suicide is more likely to come across sites that promote suicide than those that promote prevention.
1 comment:
I have to comment on this.
This story is sooo sad. First I can't believe that nobody contacted the police till 12 hours after the boy died. I mean weren't their 1500 people watching him ? And why in the world would you encouarge someone to take their own life? I know sometimes in life you can feel like that, like your at the bottom and there is nowhere left to go and you feel desperate enough to let suicide cross your mind, but I can't fathom actually letting 1500 people watch and nobody tried to reach out to him. Well I guess some did but dang ! Gosh, how can we let things like this happen!!!
But it is interesting that you brought up South Korea in your post. I am into Korean culture and I watch KOrean movies, tv, and listen to Korean music. OVer the years I remember a few times where famous people were driven to suicide because of rumors being spread online about them.
I know movie and tv stars seem to have it all but sometimes I think they might just be some of the lonliest people in the world. Like have you ever been in a room full of people or a party but you just felt so very alone? Like that kind of feeling but on a bigger scale. They have their lives out there in the public and very little people to talk to, and nobody would understand anyways unless they are famous themselves.
In Korea this spreading rumors online and online bullying is a particularly bad epidemic. Worse than in most countries I think. It's like people have nothing better to do than to go online and talk bad about celebrities. There is actually a term for it in korea, Aen-ti (literally anti-fan). There are websites where you can become a member because you don't like a specific actor or musician. What ? Who does that? And they think they know everything that goes on in these people's lives.
Recently a Korean actor died, he actually wasn't that famous but his wife was very famous comedian. Not long after he died another actress (like seriously one of THE top actresses of Korea, we're talking Julia Roberts level here) committed suicide. After the first actor had died his death was blamed on her and rumors were spread viciously online. She had lent him money and people were saying that she kept telling him to pay her back (which he couldn't do) and that is what drove the man to kill himself. Which is totally untrue because she is best friends with his wife and she wouldn't do that, its not like she needs money anyways.
ANyways your post immediately made me think of that story from just a couple months ago. There are a lot like it about Korean stars. Here is a link to a story on the suicide from the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/world/asia/03actress.html?n=Top/News/World/Countries%20and%20Territories/South%20Korea
But yes I am not surprised the Korean government is trying to regulate the internet because this kind of thing is really really bad in Korea and it is so sad. I am kinda split on the idea though. I think something needs to be done. On one hand I am for it just because it is so out of hand in Korea, it's different from here in the US. But I think in Korea even if the internet was regulated I am not sure if it would stop. It would get harder. But even in schools before the internet was so common, things like this would happen, not in a virtual enviornement, in a real school enviornment. People would be bulllied and driven to suicide. I don't know why it is such a problem in Korea.
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