I’ve always wondered if this event has happened before and if not, when it would occur. Looks like both of those questions have been answered. News has come out today via ABC News that a 19 year old Florida teen live streamed his suicide on Justin.TV. The teen had been reportedly discussing his suicide before actually going through with it. Those who were watching the stream noticed the teen didn’t appear to be breathing but only after a number of hours passed did someone contact a moderator for Justin.TV who then called local authorities. The teen was found dead at the scene.
While I’m not surprised, it turns out that some of the people who were watching the stream ended up egging the guy on to kill himself. ABC reports that things such as ‘go ahead and do it, faggot‘, were being said in the chat room. Although on the face of it, it seems as though this teen had made up his mind and he didn’t need to be egged on. However, a part of me wonders if what he read in the chatroom may have had any influence on his final decision to go through with it.
A sad story and yet another realization that the web is used by people who feel as though they can be protected by their computer screens and say anything they want without repercussion.
Thoughts and Insanity From Jeff 
I read an article about this earlier today. This is horrible… truly horrible.
I’m frequently shocked at the dark depths of human nature… but I’m also constantly amazed at the goodness in people too.
I feel bad for the dude. As for the comments…what does anyone expect?
Is it sad that, even though someone is dead, my biggest concern is future attempts at legislation to hamper the internet (like this is the internets fault and it never would have happened if there was no internet)?
@Kym Huynh – Yeah. Totally two different sides of the spectrum.
@Danny – Well, if you watched the video of the news report, the guy said something like their should of been someone monitoring and should have put an end to it.
Great, a roving Internet Suicide Prevention Network?…brilliant!
That’s exactly my point. People commit suicide every day but because someone does it online all of a sudden it’s something we can prevent? Using that same concept, I can prevent my favorite sports team from running a bad play because their game is on ESPN360.
Well, guess I’ll leave this alone for now…it’ll be a story on CSI and Law and Order soon…let’s get their take on it first.
No, I don’t think the egging on of the viewers “caused” the suicide. Juvenile people on the net are always causing whatever friction they can because they think it’s fun, but anyone with half a brain can outwit/outcomment those simpletons. Nah, he wanted to off himself but do it big, so he talks about it a bit and then streamlines it so as to finally get some attention, albeit postmortem. Don’t get me wrong, I think anyone encouraging it, if found, should fall under some kind of Good Samaritan penalty, but as far as sole blame, who among us lets anonymous internet chatters goad us into unreasonable action?