French Inquiry Launched After Live Suicide Broadcast On Periscope (bbc.com)

An anonymous reader writes: French authorities have launched an investigation after a young woman recorded her suicide which streamed live to over 1,000 connected followers on the online video app Periscope. Prosecutors in Egly, Essone, a suburb 15 miles south of Paris, confirmed they had opened the inquiry following the incident which saw the 19-year-old throw herself under a commuter train at a railway station on Tuesday.BBC reports: Previously, she had filmed herself in her flat discussing how she intended to make a video to "send a message", warning younger viewers not to continue to watch what would be a "shocking" act, it was reported. During the filming, the young woman claimed to have been raped and named her attacker, according to the reports. It is not the first time that Periscope has been linked to inappropriate content.

Comments

Re:Did anyone try to stop it?

[Motherfucking Shit]

Why didn't one of those "over 1000 followers" call the police to try to stop it?

Who knows. Maybe they did, and no one could get there in time. I came across and tuned into the drunk driving chick while she was doing her thing, and several people did contact the police, eventually guiding them to her based on streets and landmarks. I also watched while a suicidal guy in Texas drove around threatening to shoot up Wal-Marts and several viewers were keeping the county sheriff updated as to his whereabouts. They sent a chopper up to find him eventually, at least an hour into his escapade, then he holed up inside his truck occasionally speaking to officers while threatening suicide; I had to give up listening to the scanner and go to sleep before I learned the outcome of that one.

In both of these cases, even with people calling police, it took awhile to get authorities to the correct place because the vast majority of the people watching didn't live anywhere nearby, weren't familiar with the area, weren't necessarily sure how to contact law enforcement there (or where "there" even was), etc. If you tune into a live stream and you see a lady standing in front of some train tracks, what exactly are you going to do? It's not like her GPS coordinates are embedded in the video stream.