Facebook protects itself from risk by putting users in danger. Facebook moderators can't handle determinations like
whether a King Cake baby counts as obscenity. Yet the social media giant has nonetheless appointed itself arbiter of your mental health. And if its bots don't like what they see, Facebook may report you to police.
As part of "suicide prevention efforts," Facebook "says it has helped first responders conduct thousands of wellness checks globally, based on reports received through its efforts,"
reports CNN. Antigone Davis, Facebook's global head of safety, told the station: "We are using technology to proactively detect content where someone might be expressing thoughts of suicide."
Since 2011, Facebook has allowed
users to flag potential suicidal content; reports prompted emails from Facbook urging the poster to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. But starting in 2017, Facebook introduced bots to search out and report potential suicidal content.
The bots report suspected cries for help to human moderators, who may then "work with first responders, such as police departments to send help," says CNN.That's right: Facebook might call the cops on you because a bot thought you seemed sad. Facebook executives think that if a user exhibits signs of depression, it's up to Facebook-not the user's friends, family, or community-to intervene.
And why not? By preemptively turning users over to authorities, Facebook saves its own butt. As with so many tech-company precautions that they try to frame as being for users' benefit and public safety, the real protected party here is Facebook itself, which doesn't want to face criticism and lawsuits if a user who commits suicide could be said to have hinted about it online first.
All it costs is putting people's lives in danger.We've seen again and again and again how cops called in to deescalate mental health situations wind up hurting and killing those they've been called in to help. Cops are not trained psychiatric professionals. Cops are not equipped to talk people out of suicide, nor to assess whether their Facebook posts spell trouble. Cops are not equipped to judge mental health by showing up at someone's door. And cops are not going to overlook other issues, like drug possession, just because someone is having mental health issues.Not that Facebook would care. It's also begun calling police on people for an array of potential situations, including apparently terms-of-service violations. "We may also supply law enforcement with information to help prevent or respond to fraud and other illegal activity, as well as violations of the Facebook Terms,"
the Facebook safety page says.
Mental health researchers are now challenging Facebook's efforts and
asking about the ethical implications.
Reader Comments
No wonder his hissing came to mind.
Good eyes!* L.M.
R.C.
*An old baseball fielding term from my father who was headed to the big leagues, but volunteered for Korea. airplanes, then rocket work and next thing you know, here I am.
RC
In Orlando, about 20 years ago, a suicidal lady went out in her yard to talk with the cops. (I believe she held her cat in one arm and held a gun pointed at her head in the other. I likewise seem to recall her stating to the cops how the only reason she hadn’t killed herself was her love of her cat.) In order to prevent her from killing herself, the cops SHOT AT HER, (typical PIG-THINK); but missed and killed her cat! (Typical PIG SHOOTING SKILLS, (sic).) She ran back inside and killed herself.
(That was then, and is, even moreso, now, a typical ‘welfare call.’) Think of all the sad people we read about who, who are there on the scene!, and who, in care fore a loved-one, foolishly call 911 only to watch their distraught loved ones gunned down? It happens, per MSM articles, about once every three weeks, and you KNOW that’s disproportionately low.
I wonder how many life-ruining arrests, direct deaths, or involuntary psychiatric detentions have occurred thanks to FB’s caring (sic) policy? How many suicides might have resulted from such FB ‘concerns’? I’m sure FB would claim it ‘doesn’t know’, but who’s to say that no ‘winked-at’ ‘bad apple’ at FB would never create and monitor a database to laugh about via follow-up monitoring to reveal that same resulted in the death, arrest, or involuntary psychiatric detention of VICTIMS of such FB policies?
[Note: Also, realize that such supposed ‘bad-apple would almost certainly be marked for ‘High Places’, especially after they’ve bragged on and shown off their ponerological results at high level executive-only parties.]
B R.C.
*My big sister, then age 61?, “Mrs. Normal” could NOT BELIEVE the cop who came to sniff all around her house (after she foolishly let him in), and AFTER she had met him outside to show an ornamental shrub that had been killed by vandals. And yet she still believes it was ‘an exception’ - it ain’t! It’s the F*cking NORM!
RC
R.C.
* Found at the recently resurgent and veritable** site: whatreallyhappened.com (WRH) (Which in the last two or so years is not nearly so controlled by pain in the ass advertising as it has been the last three years. Just don’t go to the links with "12680" ? I in the title.)
** Not quite the word I’m looking for which means aged and honorable, and applies to institutions or persons who have long-established and consistent credibility, and I BELIEVE, it begins with a ‘V’. Venable? I still don’t think that’s it either.
RC
[Link] Re gun seizures.
R.C.
R.C.