Can a Website be to blame?

[atropine]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/...,00.html?f=rss

The recent story about the suicides of several people in one area is being linked to the networking website bebo (something that also happened in Northern Ireland a few months ago and was also feared to be connected to bebo).

Whats your views on this?
Do you think there should be a fear over "bebos" involvement?

[Bleeding Angel]

isnt it a fact that if someone you know commits suicde, then someone they know has a higher risk of doing the same.

i personally cant see how a website would help this, or make people do this, no one knoew anything about thier lives, if they had problems or not

[x-dying-inside-x]

i dont even think it has anything to do with the website.
what bleeding angel said it true.
maybe these familys need to look at the fact that maybe there child did feel really bad and wanted out of life. I think they what someone to blame and by the looks of it bebo is getting the blame.

[surprising mystery]

Tbh, it could be linked, maybe,, etc etc, but for someone to be low enough/warped self-respect to wanna follow someone else in that way.. well they have their own individual problem there. You cant blame a site IMO, I think this is going to be a very complex set of events and I dont know that anyone will ever really find out the truth now. Its sad, but I dont think a website like bebo needs to get primary blame if at all.

xx

[Crumple...]

Bebo isn't to blame, that's so stupid to blame a website, for godsake. A website is basically a virtual inanimate object, it'as the fools who killed themselves who are to blame for the suicides :|

[Narcissism]

If people meet at a bus stop and form some sucide plot/cult thing, is the bus stop to blame?!
Knowing the sh*t this country comes up with, the Bus company would be sued..

Obviously, I don't think Bebo is to blame.

[surprising mystery]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aurora

If people meet at a bus stop and form some sucide plot/cult thing, is the bus stop to blame?!
Knowing the sh*t this country comes up with, the Bus company would be sued..

Obviously, I don't think Bebo is to blame.

*giggles* Bluntly put, but correctly said.

[Isoverity]

Gah - I read about this the other day and thought of posting about it but didn't want to as yet (did the 3 little pig scandal instead)

I would not blame Bebo unless they were allowing a suicide club or something ( I don't use Bebo - yet - but I've seen some awful groups on MySpace ) but I doubt that's the case.

Maybe some kids new each other but there can be clusters of suicides that might influence each other is whats called "suicide contagion" and/or the "Werther effect" effect. I think there is something to it since I have been around it personally. Not that that is always the cases since things can be random.

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) put out suicide contagion guidelines after enough cases that focus on the reporting aspects of suicide contagion.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwR/preview/mmwrhtml/00031539.htm

Young kids can get caught-up in the morbidity/drama of these things. Of course there is already something wrong that kids would be suggestible these ways (kids aren't given what they need growing up and then "chemicals" get the blame).

I suppose the internet will get some blame as well and it was reported "Bridgend MP Madeleine Moon will raise internet use issues with police". She also doesn't like "the appearance of so-called "memory walls" on networking sites like Bebo, where members leave messages to mark the death of a friend"

I don't like those either since I think they make kids too morbid. We even have one commemoration thingy here I never liked since kids get all morbid over someone they never even knew but think they do (or the alarmist labels that scream suicide all over "Serious".

I saw a study that reported people were getting worse with "grief counselors" who were called in after traumatic event and it made all the sense in the world to me because be running in and getting people to focus on things and talk about them more they were actually magnifying things and driving the event deeper into the psyche. I see schools often making all the same mistakes when kids perish in accidents etc.

[ceapach]

I like how the first article refers to them as 'victims'.
I don't think they refer to them as such here.

[[Purple_Rain]]

i'm from near bridgend (the area these poor 7 peopel were from) and one of them was a freind of a freind, and i've seen the effect it had on her. i think that for the ones who knew each other, they probably had anothers suicide as a contributing factor.

i odnt think its Bebo's fault. i dont think its anyones fault entirely, but as i dotn know their situations i cant really comment.

but i nearly flipped out at my brother. he knows i cut. but when he heard a story on the news about this, how it could be a cult, his reply was '****ing emo's'

i walked out the room.

[Isoverity]

Quote:

Originally Posted by [Purple_Rain]

i'm from near bridgend (the area these poor 7 peopel were from) and one of them was a freind of a freind, and i've seen the effect it had on her. i think that for the ones who knew each other, they probably had anothers suicide as a contributing factor.

i odnt think its Bebo's fault. i dont think its anyones fault entirely, but as i dotn know their situations i cant really comment.

but i nearly flipped out at my brother. he knows i cut. but when he heard a story on the news about this, how it could be a cult, his reply was '****ing emo's'

i walked out the room.

I was reading on one of the sites belonging to girl to see if anything stood out. The place the kid and her friends was from seemed nice enough and it seemed most of them had nice homes/clothes etc. One girl was beautiful. The impression I got was that these kids were sort of immature in a way I see with some kids who are comfortable in some ways (don't want to say "spolied" but I almost did) but have no real sense of who they are at all.

The way they wrote/commented made them sound like 12 year olds who - when posting (using glitter and such) about the gals death sound as if they think she was taking a nap. There was lots of text/rap type talk and quite a few of the girls seemed to be boasting (a bit crudely) a lot about their "sex appeal" - whether they actually had any or not.

I didn't see all the kids involved but the ones I did see just seemed to surrounded by an environment/culture that was strenuously trying to tell them who they were in a counterfeit way - and under circumstances where they were never made to feel valuable and in touch with who they were inside themselves. So its as if a storm of bad information was swirling around outside them while a hole was growing inside them - and some collapsed like a can that had the air sucked out. Some were sort of oblivious to the full situation since they didn't realise what they were missing - having never had what they needed in the first place some didn't have a sense of even losing anything .

I saw some people already blaming the kids "brains" (" you cant fix these things its in their heads" was one comment). The "counselors" are in papers saying part of the cause is "stigma" and kids need to feel free to come out and talk about suicide. I didn't see much "stigma" concerning suicide. Unloved kids left to try and raise themselves is what I was seeing so far.

Oh and there was the mentions of the "step parents" which always says a lot right there.

Edit:
I came across an article from last year describing South Wales teen suicde being higher than other places:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/4673920.stm

[happiness_escapes_me]

I live in South Wales, and there was an article in local newpaper today.

basically what i got from it was that the latest person to kill themselves thought it was cool. in the article there was an interview with the girls friend who tried to kill herself but her stepdad saved her, she said that suicide is the "in" thing in their area at the moment, and about how the dead girl had talked about hanging herself in a glorious manner. you know liked bigged it up.

what i think is that it might have been some pact to be remembered forever ( dead girl reportedly told a friend that suicide is a way to be remember forever) or that their following a very grim and final trend.

jay x

[Isoverity]

It's sad a pretty young girl thinks she has to die to be remembered. Too many kids think they are just rubbish these days.

[Blossom]

Part of this seems to perpetuate the nagging suspicion that death still isn't a concept that is fully understood by children (ie age 14), where we're expecting them to understand. So, in a sense to follow on from Isoverity suggesting that they didn't have the best parental input, perhaps that included the parental guidance over death that does inevitably come around.

When someone kills themselves- they are the ones to "blame" for it. It seems society is looking constantly for a scapegoat for its f*ck ups.

A website cannot control your every thought and action. If it does, then you need to get out more- make REAL friends.

If these people did it because they really did feel like sh*t-then its a shame..for their families and friends.
If they did it because they want to glamourise it- then shame on them. It makes a mockery out of those who feel like sh*t for real and want to kill themselves.

But, you cannot blame a website for someones actions. It's pathetic.

[Dreaming.]

Now, I don't think that the websites are to blame per-ce - but I do think that they hold some responsibility. Somebody made a bus-stop analogy; unless the bus-stop was designed specifically for people to talk about things such as suicide, the analogy doesn't really hold much weight.

The problem with many self-harm related websites, including this one, is that it's very much geared towards self-harm, and it normalises it. I still remember somebody (Roby, I think it was you?) making the analogy that trying to recover on here can be like an alcoholic trying to recover in a pub; the whole atmosphere is geared towards self-harm, or mental health distress.

I don't think that they are completely responsible, by any means, but I do think that they are - at least in part - influencial.

[Queen Crabbit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doodahdoo

Now, I don't think that the websites are to blame per-ce - but I do think that they hold some responsibility. Somebody made a bus-stop analogy; unless the bus-stop was designed specifically for people to talk about things such as suicide, the analogy doesn't really hold much weight.

The problem with many self-harm related websites, including this one, is that it's very much geared towards self-harm, and it normalises it. I still remember somebody (Roby, I think it was you?) making the analogy that trying to recover on here can be like an alcoholic trying to recover in a pub; the whole atmosphere is geared towards self-harm, or mental health distress.

I don't think that they are completely responsible, by any means, but I do think that they are - at least in part - influencial.

what she said

[Lil Mzz Suicide]

I agree with what Aurora said. Exactly.

I don't think there is any way that Bebo could be involved with someone's suicide. Suicide cannot be caused by a website. It just doesn't make sense, although a few people I know believe Bebo did have something to do with these 7 people committing suicide.

For arguements sake, lets say they had formed a cult. Did Bebo tell them to? Did they get a message from bebo saying: KILL YOURSELVES! No, they did not. The faults of suicide are that person and their views, I have nothing against the act of taking your own life, but to blame it on an inanimate object, makes no sense at all.

[88shelz]

the website itself isnt to blame.
ppl who feel so very low though obviously do have the opportunity to find others on these social networking sites and form the plan,,
hence these sites need to be monitored more closely and perhaps raise more awarenss. xx

[RandomIdiot]

I don't get why they're thinking the website is to blame, is it just because they all had a profile on there?