Internet Sites Biased Towards Supporting Suicide

Believe It Or Not, I Care About You writes "According to a new study in the British Medical Journal which examined the search results for various suicide-related search terms, the most common results supported or encouraged suicide. Wikipedia was one of the most prevalent sources of information, particularly on suicide methods, although the Wikimedia Foundation itself does not encourage suicide. Other studies have shown that media coverage has an effect on suicide particularly with respect to influencing the method chosen. Interestingly, this study notes that suicide rates actually decreased with increased Web usage in England, perhaps because support is readily available to anyone who wants it."

Comments

Re:What are you going to search for?

[Jimmy_B]

The question is what is someone considering suicide going to do a search for - suicide, suicide consueling, or suicide methods? They should have asked that question of a bunch of recent suicide attempters first.

They did. From the article, "the researchers collected 12 broad search terms gathered in part from interviews with those who had attempted suicide."

Re:Out with a bang.

[oostevo]

That's an extremely good question. To the best of my understanding, no, friends and relatives absolutely never use the word "suicide" when referencing someone blowing themselves up in a conflict. It's exclusively considered martyrdom.

The best source I can readily find is a documentary about suicide bombing ("The Cult of the Suicide Bomber", which is excellent, by the way), where the narrator interviews the family of Iran's most celebrated martyr, Mohammed Hossein Fahmideh.

Bob Baer:"I hope you don't mind me asking, but Hossein was the first suicide bomber, wasn't he?"

Family: "No, not at all. Yes, he did have a very strong belief. He was a martyr. It's impossible to describe him as anything else. A martyr through and through."

Bob Baer: [aside] "It's interesting, they absolutely reject the word 'suicide', even though there was a 100% chance that he would die. It just does not come into the vocabulary; he is simply a martyr."

Does that satisfy your curiosity?