Facebook is rolling out a new mechanism to help combat suicide in the US. This means that posts on the social networking site that appear to be suicidal will trigger a series of notifications offering help.
The announcement, made in a post on Facebook’s official safety page, says that anyone who sees a post on their timeline that they deem to be suicidal can report it directly to Facebook, or a friend of the person, and it will then be reviewed by a trained team of specialists.
If deemed appropriate, that team will send the poster private notifications with suicide prevention and support resources, such as a connection to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline hotline.
The team will also contact the person who reported the post to give them the option of calling or messaging their friend first, and offering them the opportunity to get advice from a trained professional as well.
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The feature will be rolling out in the US over the next few months. It is unclear if this will be made available elsewhere but the post does confirm that Facebook is working on improving it’s mechanisms worldwide.
Featured image credit – Shutterstock
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