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Indonesian man broadcast his suicide on Facebook shocking netizens
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Most people with serious depression want to escape by attempting suicide. The pain can be so overwhelming that they cannot see any way to manage other than taking their own life. (Shutterstock/*)
A
n Indonesian man broadcast his suicide on Facebook, which shocked netizens before the government called for the social media platform to take down the content.
“After receiving reports from the public, we strongly urged Facebook to take down the content immediately,” Samuel Abrijani Pangerapan, the director general of information application at the Communications and Information Ministry, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
The suicide was broadcast live on Facebook at 9 a.m. on Friday, as the 35-year-old man started a live-stream where he fashioned a noose out of a scarf and hung himself.
Facebook took down the live broadcast of the man committing suicide at 8.30 p.m. on the same day after it had been aired on the social media.
On his Facebook account, he wrote, “I bloody love her, but she left my children and me behind. I don’t know where she has gone. It’s hard to say what has happened. I don’t know what to do. I am in a really terrible situation.”
The one-hour-45-minute video had gone viral and was easily accessed by netizens. The content was clicked on over 100,000 times after twelve hours on social media.
Samuel said that the government reminded netizens that they could be charged under the Electronic Information and Transactions Law for disseminating such material.
“We should be more attentive about spreading such violent material,” Samuel asserted.
According to Samuel, the ministry had called the US-based social media platform in Jakarta to take down the video in the afternoon, but the content remained online until later that night.
“We put a priority on monitoring social media in society because the impact on people is quite significant,” he said.
Facebook stated that the social media platform immediately removed unethical material and reported it to relevant law enforcement agencies when it was detected.
"We have zero tolerance for violent content,” Facebook said in a statement. (dan)
