THE INTERNET, like every other form of media, is not a single force for good or ill. In discussing the relationship between the online world and suicide, there are two sides to the story - prevention and facilitation.
The dilemma explored by Kathy Sheridan in Weekend Review today is that the internet, and in particular social networking sites for children and young people, can provide support to those in the midst of an emotional crisis. It can also, whether deliberately or inadvertently, sentimentalise suicide, amplify self-destructive thoughts and give troubled people access to harmful information.
In responding to this difficult issue, it is important to avoid hysteria. Media reports of so-called "internet suicide cults" are usually inaccurate and often counter-productive. Suicides can be triggered by a "copycat" effect - but that effect was first observed after the publication of Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774, and it can be produced by images in fiction, in the traditional media, in films or in soap operas. There is no evidence that the internet in itself makes things worse - indeed, suicide rates have been falling internationally among the age groups who use the internet most.
If social networking sites and internet search companies bear no more responsibility in this area than other media, that does not mean they should bear less. Newspapers and television stations need to be very careful in their coverage of suicide. Internet companies which play such a central role in the lives of young people should be held to the same standards.
There is a very strong case for international action to require internet search companies like Google, which has been particularly irresponsible in this regard, to remove sites that encourage suicide from their results, or at least to make them harder to access. Likewise social network sites like Bebo, with its huge base among teenagers, can react more positively. They can educate their members on how to respond when friends express suicidal thoughts. (Even those who announce a suicide online may in fact be still alive, but well-meant expressions of grief may actually encourage them to act on their thoughts.) They can use some of their profits to fund and support some of the excellent online resources for young people in distress. They can remove "memorial" sites for dead teenagers after a set period, so that they do not come to glorify what is always a violent and wasteful act. With their very success in enhancing young people's lives, sites like Bebo have acquired the kind of power that must now be matched with responsibility.