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News : Samaritans app monitors Twitter feeds for suicide warnings

Anonymous
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Headline : Samaritans app monitors Twitter feeds for suicide warnings.

Excerpts from the Link "The Samaritans charity has launched a new app which will notify Twitter users if people they follow on the site appear to be suicidal.
Samaritans Radar uses an algorithm to identify key words and phrases which indicate distress.
They include "tired of being alone", "hate myself", "depressed", "help me" and "need someone to talk to."

"However it does not yet identify sarcasm, according to the website.
The charity says it will not get involved directly unless requested."

My thoughts :

Anything that helps to reach out to people in times of distress has to be a good thing if used in the right way. I firmly believe The Samaritans do a fantastic job ,and offer an awesome point of contact for those in distress.

Im happy to say I'm glad theirs an 'App for that'

Source : BBC News.
Read more here : http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29801214
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Anonymous
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Thanks for sharing BoB!
I actually found this article really interesting...I don't know how effective can the app be and if the algorithm is going to work well, language is really difficult to interpret and usually the only way to do it is by real people. Anyway I think it is a good initiative and it can help to be aware of what's going on around us.

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Anonymous
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New Update.

Headline : Samaritans pulls 'suicide watch' Radar app.

Excerpt from the link "An app made by the Samaritans that was supposed to detect when people on Twitter appeared to be suicidal has been pulled due to "serious" concerns.

The charity's app was meant to use an algorithm to identify key words and phrases which indicated distress.

But in practice, some said the app made those with mental health issues feel more vulnerable."

Source : BBC News.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29962199
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Cleoriff
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I haven't responded to this thread till now....because I felt this twitter app could be open to all sorts of abuse.

People 'feigning' suicide tendencies.... just because they can.....

It is sad that some people would feel the need to abuse such a system but it is well known from other help sources, that suicide 'trolls' do exist.

A hospital I worked in instigated a suicide help line some time ago. It was discontinued because 50% of calls were bogus....and was deemed to be too costly. A sad state of affairs .

Edited to add...I wonder who was monitoring the algorithm to detect suicide tendencies....

Veritas Numquam Perit

Girl in a jacket
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