Facebook announced the introduction of a new feature for suicide prevention. For this innovative feature, the social media giant has teamed up with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Now Matters Now, Save.org and Forefront: Innovations in Suicide Prevention, which is a nonprofit organization that operates out of the School of Social Work from the University of Washington. The main purpose for this new feature for suicide prevention is to give users options when they see that a friend of theirs is posting concerning content.
The way the feature for suicide prevention works is as follows: if a friend posts some worrisome content on Facebook that might indicate the fact that they intend of harming themselves, then you can click on the little arrow at the top right of the post and access Report Post. Once you do that, you will be given some options on how you can contact your friend who made the post, how you can contact another friend for support or simply contact a suicide helpline.
After you have chosen your method of contact, Facebook will take a look at the post and if it decides that the post indicates distress then it will contact the person in question. This is how it will look when the person is contacted:
If the person decides that they would like to discuss with someone about the content or their issues then they are also given three options: either contact a suicide helpline, call a friend or send a friend a Facebook message. Facebook also helps by providing videos of real people who have dealt with suicidal thoughts.
Until now, you had to take a screenshot of the worrisome content and seek out Facebook’s suicide prevention page and upload it there.
Right now, the new feature for suicide prevention is available for around 50% of Facebook users inside the United States, but the company announced that it will roll out in the rest of the country in the following months.
Facebook Product Manager, Rob Boyle and Facebook Community Operations Safety Specialist, Nicole Staubli released a statement in which they said that Facebook has teams working all around the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and review every single report that the company receives. They added that the teams prioritize the most serious reports, such as self-injury, and send resources and help to the people in distress.
The new Facebook feature for suicide prevention is available on both mobile and desktop.
Image Source: Huffington Post
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