Internet encourages suicide

The query terms used in this study did not include 'help', 'prevention' 'counseling' 'assistance'. The terms used by the Bristol group retrieved results that were focusing on methods of suicide. Search engines don't think, they respond.

Cutting off the internet isn't the solution. The internet can be used for both good or harm. The real question we should be asking is 'why do these teenagers want to kill themselves?' These teenagers need hope. Something to live for. They are lonely. Getting them off the internet won't change the way they feel.

The title is awesome... makes about as much sense as "Roads encourage drink driving"... what a daft thing to put!

SM replies: welcome to the wonderful world of irony.

So, they only searched for terms like how to kill yourself and amazingly got results like how to kill yourself.

might have found more advice pages searching for depression advice for example.

anyone know if they did that or just clueless scaremongering?

"Someone seriously needs to cut the internet off from Bridgend then"
Very amusing haha until its yourself or someone you care about huh?
Cheap remarks like yours don't help and personally I would take you out and flog you in public for abusing your freedom of speech to make immature jack off remarks unfit for this topic you want stand up get in the boxing ring.

So when they search for help on how to kill themselves they get it? What a surprise. Well, waddayaknow Google's anti wordfarming techniques really work. I would hardly call this any form of science as the test has been engineered to give them the results they want.

I agree that it can be a trigger, and have came across many people who have used the internet for their source, i have been 'there' many a time, and even got an audience once, thankfully though i am enjoying life a little more...

There are also very dangerous people using these sites on the net and talking/coaxing some unfortunate person, who's last needs are something like this, to be thrown into this dark world..

With respect to halliday's comment, this is simply not true. I have been an IT bod for over 15 years, and I know the way google works (to a degree) as I have self programmed an internet search engine and worked with crawlers before. They do not store cookies from a direct search and they do not check your previous history either to compare results, I have never heard such ludacris comments which were supposed to be debatable. On the other hand, you simply cannot eliminate the words 'kill' or 'suicide' from any search engine (major or minor) because these words are used in many a different context, and they cannot limit the 'freedom' to information, if they did, the service would soon be on its knee's as other engines would crop up that offer 'no liability' towards any external sites/pages found via a search on that engine. Whether the internet entices users or not, its not asif its being done 'blatantly' and even if the crackdown was to happen on these things, at the end of the day, technology or no technology; if someone wants to suicide, they will do it one way or another!

So they searched for info on killing themselves, and they found... info on killing themselves!!!

Genius.

Hardly proof of anything other than (for once) internet search actually working (like the adwords idea though).

Earth is overpopulated by morons anyway.

Why do I bother commenting when AT doesn't allow my comments anyway?

I really wanted to comitt suicide a few years ago and did extensive intrnt research on how to do it, which inevitably put me off, because even the suicide sites that tell you how, graphically explain how you die and unless you have access to a physicians cupboard, ther is no easy painless way.

Also any search on google for suicide related stuff, throws up all sorts of support group type stuff, so you get bombarded by people trying to stop you doing it as well as sites that tell you how too. 

The spate of suicicides in bridgend, was i reckon the kids going for some kind of immortality...they made their Bebo profiles and then got world wide media attention, and go down in history.

It isnt that bad an idea if you want immortality, personally I was just very knackered and wanted to go to sleep forever.


"The report maintains that any attempt to regulate suicide promotion needs to strike a balance between freedom of expression and public protection and the global nature of the Internet."
yeah. simple really.
Suicides promotions for... martyrs?
"Ethno-sectarians" what's their orthodoxy? "Live and let die."
Like I told that special forces chap: I understand the breaking, but I'm a bit fuzzy about the fixing. There is no fix. Really. It's all fixed. But I admit not knowing how the Bleeb works.

If the researchers used better search terms they would have come up with a higher percentage of sites that provide 'advice' on suicide. If you search for "How to kill yourself" you expect results telling you how to kill yourself. If you search for "suicide information" then maybe the results would show a better reflection of the information on the Internet about suicide.

We should just censor the internet. It is a source of hatred and only the younger generation knows how to use it.

Only time I ever found any google cookies on my machine was when I very recently created a blogger account (cause I wanted to reply to some interesting blogs); I use the search engine a lot and it never stored any cookies.

Parallel universes again?

Someone seriously needs to cut the internet off from Bridgend then.

I contacted the Beeb about this as it was on my local radio. The spokesperson for this survey admitted not knowing how Google worked!


Any IT bod knows that Google traces the history of a user and provides a list based on words entered and previous history.

How much do you bet that a company doing a survey on this didn't bother to delete their cookies each time they tried a search?

A youngster will probably get a very different list from this company.

Even if they did, I bet Google and others don't accept advertising on words like kill and suicide.

I bet they didn't bother looking at good old USENET (or as most people know it today as - Google Groups) either.

These companies should become more IT savvy and maybe phone up Google and the others and ask for the charities to be given a free adword account and therefore be listed first in these special cases.

Can't see Google turning them away...


There is ALREADY extensive internet filtering.

Many "objectionable" sites are removed from the DNS records.

Protecting our young IS more important than allowing Abusers to ABUSE Freedom... how much freedom to do wrong should we allow?

The internet encourages everything and the internet discourages everything. The fact is if you're pre-determind towards a specific behaviour type the slightest suggestion will trigger that. We have people who think every activity that we do should be banned because of it's consequences on certain members of society. People like who believe this way would be happier living in communist china. I believe that responsible adults are capable of making informed and responsible decisions without the interference of these, self appointed moral guardians.

The research is flawed, as I explain at length in this blog post http://paulcanning.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-suicide-prevention-charities-are.html

Anyone with any knowledge of search and search behaviour could point out numerous, extremely basic, problems with the methodology. 

What is worse is that charities and government have it within their power to counteract these websites. Blaming people like ISPs is an abdication of responsibility.

--[The researches used popular search engines to find pages using simple terms like "painless suicide" and "how to kill yourself" and were disturbed to find that only a fifth of the resultant sites offered support or prevention.]--

If they'd wanted hits on that, they should have searched for "How to prevent myself from killing myself".

I'm always amused, but somewhat alarmed, at the outrage of certain people when searching for something on the internet actually returns what was being searched for.

--[Any IT bod knows that Google traces the history of a user and provides a list based on words entered and previous history.]--

It works pretty well when you have your browser cookies turned off as well, though. I'm not sure the previous history affects the search results - that's a new one on me, if it's true.

AOL - access often lost.

Solution: Lower the cost of funerals, case solved.

now we must wait for the giant aliens.

p.s. australia should go on strike.