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Facebook/Twitter Preventing Suicides, Demi Moore Gets Credit

by Terrence O'Brien on April 6, 2009 at 01:46 PM

Social Networking Tools Used to Prevent Suicides Around the World, Demi Moore Claims Credit

Clearly, there is something wrong out there. And we're not talking about the fact that the new installment in the street racing movie series 'Fast and Furious' raked in $72.5 million over the weekend.

Flighty media types have gone celebrity-Twitter-crazy, and have gotten so wrapped up in the new, of-the-moment social networking service that they haven't even paused to make sure whether or not what they're reporting is newsworthy, or even true.

Take, for example the widely reported story of Demi Moore responding via Twitter to a woman who had threatened, in a tweet, to kill herself. The New York Daily News ran the tale under the headline, "Demi Moore uses her Twitter to help stop woman's suicide attempt." On the scale of truthiness, that falls squarely in the "two plus two is five" range.


What actually happened? A user named "Sandieguy" tweeted, "Getting a knife, a big one that is sharp. Going to cut my arm down the whole arm so it doesn't waste time." The Twitterverse responded, tracing the user to San Jose, California, placing calls to the local police department, and doing some general sleuthing until "Sandieguy" was found and taken in for psychological evaluation. What did Demi Moore have to do with this? She responded to that initial Tweet: "I hope you're kidding."

So an army of unknown Twitter users -- most of whom were 'followers' of Demi Moore -- potentially stop a young woman from committing suicide and Demi Moore gets the credit, and all because she's famous. We're happy someone's life was saved, but let's give credit to the folks who actually did the following up and made some phone calls to the local authorities.

Refreshingly, no washed-up actresses were involved in the case of an Oxford, England boy who tried to kill himself by overdosing on drugs. A 16-year-old Facebook friend from Maryland realized that the boy was suicidal and immediately told her parents. The family then contacted the British Embassy, who called Scotland Yard, who, in turn, reached out to local police in Oxford and eventually tracked the boy down.

The boy had successfully overdosed, but was still alive when found by the authorities, all thanks to a 16-year-old girl 3,000 miles away. And no cougar could steal the credit from her. [From: CNN and CNET]

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Tags: demi moore, DemiMoore, facebook, microblogging, social networking, SocialNetworking, suicide, twitter

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