The biggest social networking site Facebook is planning to get underway a system that would enable users to report those friends who might be considering suicide.
The feature will be accessible in alliance with Samaritans, which believes that many people have made use of it during the test phase.
Under the system, any user concerned regarding a friend can fill out a form giving details of their concerns and this is then passed to the site’s moderators. Several cases are then taken into notification where the Facebook users have expressed their intention to commit suicide online.
The details include the address (URL) of the Facebook page where the messages are posted, the full name of the user and details of any networks they are members of.
Suicide-related alerts will be amplified to the maximum level for the attention by Facebook’s user operations team.
Samaritans’ Nicola Peckett said, “When a report is made, they then assess whether they need to call the police immediately or forward it on to us.”
Samaritans added that the system is in its infancy and testing stage for the last three months during which no hoaxes were observed. Only genuine reports were seen during this time.
