“Feeling low today”. A post from an acquaintance whom you haven’t met for years pops up on your Facebook wall. You respond with a sympathetic emoji, and scroll down. But now, the social networking giant — privy to the moods of more than a billion users — has decided to intervene and allow members to ‘help’ each other. It has launched a set of suicide prevention tools on the website.
If a person is worried about a friend’s post, he or she can flag it. A team from Facebook reviews the post, after which an automated message is sent to the individual concerned giving them suicide hotline numbers and suggestions on how to cope with any problem they may be facing. The message gives the user the option of talking to friends or reaching out to local mental health organisations and helplines. In India, Facebook has collaborated with local non-government organisations, Aasra and The Live Love Laugh Foundation.
Human touch While the social network may have the best of intentions, several mental health professionals in Bengaluru are concerned how it will affect users. “Someone facing difficulties would probably like to have a personal touch. This seems very distant, and it could be used irresponsibly by the person reporting the post,” said Shreelata Rao, professor at Azim Premji University.
Johnson Thomas, director of AASRA, said the confidentiality of the process would encourage people to call out in case they know someone they think needs help. “Through the tool, it is not necessary for anyone to know you’re seeking help,” Mr. Thomas said. Even if it is a false alarm, it could help the person who posted the message.
The flip side is that not knowing who has reported you could make a person feel like they are being monitored. “It’s a non-human interface so there’s no emotional entity involved. I’m a little sceptical about how effective it would be if you did not know who reported you,” said Ennis Jose, co-founder of TalkItOver Counselling Services. He added that people have to wait to see the consequences of the step in terms of user behaviour. “If the person is feeling challenged, stressed, or depressed, the message may possibly give the person the push to talk about what he or she is going through.”
Subrata Pradhan, a Bengaluru-based business consultant who took the trouble to find the link hidden among a pile of instructions, said, “If it’s a friend, I’d rather call the person or his/her parents to find out how they are doing. Also, Facebook closed the incident with a suggestion to approach law enforcement officials. So I’d rather do that directly than go through the hassle of finding the page for raising a report.”
Question of privacy The launch has also raised concerns of privacy violations. An official from Facebook confirmed that the website did not contact people until someone else had given a report to the site. “We do not monitor accounts to look for changes in behaviour in order to identify people who are suicidal. We look to the Facebook community to report troubling content,” said Ankhi Das, Facebook India, South & Central Asia.
What this intervention does, though, is spread awareness and brings the topic of mental health out of the closet and into a public space. Any help to spread information to those in need is welcome, felt B.N. Gangadhar, director of National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences. “The best indicator of a suicide risk is expressing suicide thoughts themselves, and if that can be picked up, the right professionals can step in,” Dr. Gangadhar said. Even if it was a false positive, the person would be in some distress and could use help, he felt.
