Japan Sees 'Wave of Suicides' Using Detergent

I'm not kidding when i say i can kill myself with a bit of string, you know?

On a more serious note; this is reminiscient of the suicide pacts and suicide websites that were quite 'popular' a few years back in Japan.

The fact that these same events appear to be recurrent is disturbing.

Originally posted by Anti-Tyrant
On a more serious note; this is reminiscient of the suicide pacts and suicide websites that were quite 'popular' a few years back in Japan.

The fact that these same events appear to be recurrent is disturbing.

the similarities are not unnoticed here - the police have been going after ISPs to shut down those sites, but they do keep cropping up. There is a fairly large citizen's network that monitors places where discussions like that take place, and takes action to talk people out of it.

I'm all for a media ban - outright - on suicide reporting. most western countries have a tacit agreement with the media that suicides don't make the news.

(on the citizen's groups: there is a group that operates in this area of Hokkaido. they do a kind of patrol of wilderness areas where people have been known to wander off to die. quite often, just being caught is enough to set people right.)

Originally posted by vox2442
I'm all for a media ban - outright - on suicide reporting. most western countries have a tacit agreement with the media that suicides don't make the news.

When I worked in radio, my station would not report suicides except under certain conditions:

1) The person made a big public spectacle of themselves (like taking hostages or committing some other offense to set themselves up for "suicide by cop") or

2) Public authorities were somehow involved (we had an incident where a man hung himself in the county jail--we reported on it, and kept a quiet eye on it "just in case" there was more to the story, but when there wasn't we let it fade away).

And really, it had little to do with preventing copycats from popping up; it was primarily our program director's disdain for those who would do such a thing. We were never briefed on any "official" policy among media outlets.