When somebody announces to stream his suicide on Seesmic

When Loic Le Meur pitched Seesmic to Holland’s most talented cross media talents, he also told them how he handled a suicide announcement on his video service. Quite an interesting story, so I figured I’d share it with you.

Le Meur was in his San Francisco-based office, watching a big LCD screen where the desperate person was depicted. “People emailed us that he looked very serious”, Le Meur said, “the guy was about to kill himself, what do you do?”

So while hundreds of Seesmic members tried to convince the man to not kill himself by posting comments on his videos, Le Meur called his lawyers. “We’re a US-based company after all”. They advised him to call the police, which Le Meur did.

“We gave the police his IP address. After twenty minutes, they knocked on his door somewhere in the middle of the US”. An interesting example of a case where security is more important than privacy.

Update: check out Loic’s comment, he actually gave the email address.