11 ms·

After a livestreamed suicide, TikTok waited to call police

54 points by crivabene 7y ago

xerox13ster 7y ago
[]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
  Spoiler warning, please!
stronglikedan 7y ago
Sounds like they did the right thing. The police couldn't have helped by the time the company was aware of the post. Certainly at least one of his fans had already called them anyway.
Grustaf 7y ago
I just heard today that tik tok is libe moderating its content, perhaps they weren’t doing tgat back then?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  As noted in the article, they were: The team of moderators, referred to internally with the anodyne moniker of “technical team,” is the only unit that works alone, apart from other TikTok operators and staff. This team’s responsibility includes pulling any content that violates TikTok’s terms of use or is offensive to the app’s user community. Live broadcasts, however, are monitored by an even more elite team operating in China, where ByteDance has its global headquarters. The team in China was responsible for monitoring the app and discovering João’s suicide as it was livestreamed. Yet no one saw it. https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/tiktok-suicide-brazil/ https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/tiktok-suicide-brazil/
cj 7y ago
This (again) highlights the need for tech companies to take responsibility for what happens on their platform. And it probably won't happen without increased regulation. Imagine you build a real-world football stadium. Then, you open the doors up to the public for free with minimal restrictions or rules for how the space is used. You brand the stadium as a "platform" and you invite the public to treat it as such. 6 months later you have people doing drugs on one side of the stadium, holding a white supremacy rally at the other end of the stadium, and then a group of people in the bleachers playing russian roulette with the occasional casualty. The police eventually track down the owner of the stadium. The owner says "Yes, I own the stadium, it's my property, but sorry Mr. Police, the stadium is a Platform for free expression. I have no control what the public does in there." -- Introducing new regulations is usually an unpopular suggestion. It raises the barrier of entry for competitors. It limits the market to players who can afford to comply. But at a certain point, IMO we should stop giving tech companies a free pass just because they're a "platform" that's "too large to moderate".
- big_chungus 7y ago
  > You brand the stadium as a "platform" and you invite the public to treat it as such. 6 months later you have people doing drugs on one side of the stadium, holding a white supremacy rally at the other end of the stadium, and then a group of people in the bleachers playing russian roulette with the occasional casualty. So what? People are responsible for their own individual actions. None of what you described is hurting anyone else. It may not be a pleasant place, but that's okay because it's private property. Now consider that in the digital world there's no possibility for physical harm and the example becomes entirely pointless in any case.
  - hfdh434535 7y ago
    We're talking about a suicide, so there is possibility for physical harm. (I'm not at all saying TikTok should be responsible for this person's suicide. Only that moderation of online platforms can have real physical consequences. When moderators respond appropriately to posts involving suicide, stalking, and child pornography, they can help prevent abuse in the physical world.)
bassman9000 7y ago
Friendly reminder https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/tiktok-releases-transparency-report-amid-scrutiny-over-chinese-ownership-n1109201 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/tiktok-releases-tr... Lt. Col. Robin Ochoa, a spokeswoman for the Army, told Military.com in an article published this week that TikTok "is considered a cyber threat." Why acting surprised now? EDIT: care to reason the downvotes? Or just CCP-patrolling? TikTok gets away with this shit because is yet another front in the CCP cyberwarfare theater. Nothing will happen to them as long as they're a useful tool.
- jshevek 7y ago
  Some people downvote comments which question downvotes.
- dang 7y ago
  Your original comment was probably downvoted because it took the thread on a flamebait tangent, which breaks the site guidelines. These parts: > care to reason the downvotes? > Or just CCP-patrolling? ... break the site guidelines even more. We ban accounts that do that, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here? We'd appreciate it.
jennyyang 7y ago
This article sounds skewed against TikTok. Was the police never contacted by anyone about the suicide? Maybe the police were already contacted? This is a big question that the article leaves out that makes it sound like it's only TikTok who is responsible for calling the police.
- freeone3000 7y ago
  Bystanders have a responsibility to report, at least where I am. Even if they are not the only ones responsible, they are still responsible.
  - drivingmenuts 7y ago
    Bystander has a different meaning online, though. Is a viewer located halfway around the world still a bystander when they are not governed by the law surrounding an event and may not have any way to influence said event? Is this same person culpable?
    - freeone3000 7y ago
      Yes, it'd be the same as if you were on the phone with the person.
      - brianTheDog 7y ago
        That doesn’t make sense. The person on the phone you most likely know where they live. If you are on an 800 number how do you contact the correct authorities? A public account on tiktok can’t tell you who to call... unless it has a video of ghostbusters, but that won’t help.
- tareqak 7y ago
  Please feel free to email them for the answers. They may have this information already.
tomatocracy 7y ago
This article doesn't mention that there is good evidence that publicity surrounding high profile suicides often leads others who are at risk to attempt suicide too. Thats why (along with respect for families) suicides are often described more obliquely as 'x has died' when the deaths are reported. Ensuring that these types of incidents have as low a profile in the press as possible may well have saved lives.
dredmorbius 7y ago
The principle failing here seems to be a lack of a prepared plan of action for such events, and confusion within the TikTok offices as to how specifically to respond. When you are dealing with The Public and public activities, at scale and volume, you've got to be prepared for such actions. This means not only detection (which functioned poorly), but response. - Contact first responders and emergency services. - Disable harmful, inappropriate, or disturbing content. - A set of prepared communications for specific circumstances (and adapatable to others) such that you're not scrambling to put together language under a crisis situation. It's worth noting that with networks such as Facebook and Google (the late unlamented G+, YouTube) having literally billions of users, simple actuarial statistics mean that tens of thousands of accounts are likely to represent deaths on any given day. Contingency planning simply has to account for more than puppies and rainbows. During my own time on G+, at least two of the thousand of so people I followed closely, both within a relatively close circle, took their own lives. One was a complete shock, though he'd been acting somewhat oddly (purging activity and accounts, then restoring them) over preceding months. The other had made threats over the course of a year or so, including a previous instance in which I'd tried frantically to find a way to alert local authorities thousands of km away. The first time there was a intervention. The second, not. Thankfully, in both cases the evidence wasn't a stream, but silence. I followed up as best I could with several Googlers at the time. There's frustratingly little which can be done, though some capabilities were offered. TikTok's response here strikes me more as simply poor planning, and the Intercept's criticisms perhaps unduly harsh. Though yes, forsight, planning, drilling of those plans, and an ever-so-slightly less self-serving slant to the response, would be preferred. Requiescat in pace, Dieter and Dawn.

54 points by crivabene 7y ago

xerox13ster 7y ago

[]

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
Spoiler warning, please!

stronglikedan 7y ago

Sounds like they did the right thing. The police couldn't have helped by the time the company was aware of the post. Certainly at least one of his fans had already called them anyway.

Grustaf 7y ago

I just heard today that tik tok is libe moderating its content, perhaps they weren’t doing tgat back then?

dredmorbius 7y ago
As noted in the article, they were: The team of moderators, referred to internally with the anodyne moniker of “technical team,” is the only unit that works alone, apart from other TikTok operators and staff. This team’s responsibility includes pulling any content that violates TikTok’s terms of use or is offensive to the app’s user community. Live broadcasts, however, are monitored by an even more elite team operating in China, where ByteDance has its global headquarters. The team in China was responsible for monitoring the app and discovering João’s suicide as it was livestreamed. Yet no one saw it. https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/tiktok-suicide-brazil/ https://theintercept.com/2020/02/06/tiktok-suicide-brazil/

cj 7y ago

This (again) highlights the need for tech companies to take responsibility for what happens on their platform. And it probably won't happen without increased regulation. Imagine you build a real-world football stadium. Then, you open the doors up to the public for free with minimal restrictions or rules for how the space is used. You brand the stadium as a "platform" and you invite the public to treat it as such. 6 months later you have people doing drugs on one side of the stadium, holding a white supremacy rally at the other end of the stadium, and then a group of people in the bleachers playing russian roulette with the occasional casualty. The police eventually track down the owner of the stadium. The owner says "Yes, I own the stadium, it's my property, but sorry Mr. Police, the stadium is a Platform for free expression. I have no control what the public does in there." -- Introducing new regulations is usually an unpopular suggestion. It raises the barrier of entry for competitors. It limits the market to players who can afford to comply. But at a certain point, IMO we should stop giving tech companies a free pass just because they're a "platform" that's "too large to moderate".

big_chungus 7y ago
> You brand the stadium as a "platform" and you invite the public to treat it as such. 6 months later you have people doing drugs on one side of the stadium, holding a white supremacy rally at the other end of the stadium, and then a group of people in the bleachers playing russian roulette with the occasional casualty. So what? People are responsible for their own individual actions. None of what you described is hurting anyone else. It may not be a pleasant place, but that's okay because it's private property. Now consider that in the digital world there's no possibility for physical harm and the example becomes entirely pointless in any case.
- hfdh434535 7y ago
  We're talking about a suicide, so there is possibility for physical harm. (I'm not at all saying TikTok should be responsible for this person's suicide. Only that moderation of online platforms can have real physical consequences. When moderators respond appropriately to posts involving suicide, stalking, and child pornography, they can help prevent abuse in the physical world.)

bassman9000 7y ago

Friendly reminder https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/tiktok-releases-transparency-report-amid-scrutiny-over-chinese-ownership-n1109201 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/tiktok-releases-tr... Lt. Col. Robin Ochoa, a spokeswoman for the Army, told Military.com in an article published this week that TikTok "is considered a cyber threat." Why acting surprised now? EDIT: care to reason the downvotes? Or just CCP-patrolling? TikTok gets away with this shit because is yet another front in the CCP cyberwarfare theater. Nothing will happen to them as long as they're a useful tool.

jshevek 7y ago
Some people downvote comments which question downvotes.
dang 7y ago
Your original comment was probably downvoted because it took the thread on a flamebait tangent, which breaks the site guidelines. These parts: > care to reason the downvotes? > Or just CCP-patrolling? ... break the site guidelines even more. We ban accounts that do that, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here? We'd appreciate it.

jennyyang 7y ago

This article sounds skewed against TikTok. Was the police never contacted by anyone about the suicide? Maybe the police were already contacted? This is a big question that the article leaves out that makes it sound like it's only TikTok who is responsible for calling the police.

freeone3000 7y ago
Bystanders have a responsibility to report, at least where I am. Even if they are not the only ones responsible, they are still responsible.
- drivingmenuts 7y ago
  Bystander has a different meaning online, though. Is a viewer located halfway around the world still a bystander when they are not governed by the law surrounding an event and may not have any way to influence said event? Is this same person culpable?
  - freeone3000 7y ago
    Yes, it'd be the same as if you were on the phone with the person.
    - brianTheDog 7y ago
      That doesn’t make sense. The person on the phone you most likely know where they live. If you are on an 800 number how do you contact the correct authorities? A public account on tiktok can’t tell you who to call... unless it has a video of ghostbusters, but that won’t help.
tareqak 7y ago
Please feel free to email them for the answers. They may have this information already.

tomatocracy 7y ago

This article doesn't mention that there is good evidence that publicity surrounding high profile suicides often leads others who are at risk to attempt suicide too. Thats why (along with respect for families) suicides are often described more obliquely as 'x has died' when the deaths are reported. Ensuring that these types of incidents have as low a profile in the press as possible may well have saved lives.

dredmorbius 7y ago

The principle failing here seems to be a lack of a prepared plan of action for such events, and confusion within the TikTok offices as to how specifically to respond. When you are dealing with The Public and public activities, at scale and volume, you've got to be prepared for such actions. This means not only detection (which functioned poorly), but response. - Contact first responders and emergency services. - Disable harmful, inappropriate, or disturbing content. - A set of prepared communications for specific circumstances (and adapatable to others) such that you're not scrambling to put together language under a crisis situation. It's worth noting that with networks such as Facebook and Google (the late unlamented G+, YouTube) having literally billions of users, simple actuarial statistics mean that tens of thousands of accounts are likely to represent deaths on any given day. Contingency planning simply has to account for more than puppies and rainbows. During my own time on G+, at least two of the thousand of so people I followed closely, both within a relatively close circle, took their own lives. One was a complete shock, though he'd been acting somewhat oddly (purging activity and accounts, then restoring them) over preceding months. The other had made threats over the course of a year or so, including a previous instance in which I'd tried frantically to find a way to alert local authorities thousands of km away. The first time there was a intervention. The second, not. Thankfully, in both cases the evidence wasn't a stream, but silence. I followed up as best I could with several Googlers at the time. There's frustratingly little which can be done, though some capabilities were offered. TikTok's response here strikes me more as simply poor planning, and the Intercept's criticisms perhaps unduly harsh. Though yes, forsight, planning, drilling of those plans, and an ever-so-slightly less self-serving slant to the response, would be preferred. Requiescat in pace, Dieter and Dawn.