Whilst I was perusing my email inbox at the weekend I stumbled across some information that I felt I needed to share with the world. Sometimes when we are trawling through the status updates of those we love (okay maybe we don’t love all those we are friends with on Facebook but you get my drift) … just sometimes we can find ourselves reading something that we find worrying. Statements of suicide, self-harm and despair. These messages can leave us paralysed, worried and unsure what to do. Well Facebook have teamed up with the Suicide Prevention Line and are giving us the tools right in the palm of our hands to try and help.
It basically allows you to flag a post that you find worrying in order to ensure that the team behind the scenes at Facebook can look to help. This means they can send the person a list of options to help them get the help and support they may need, before things are too late. This is such a refreshing piece of news for us here at SelfharmUK and it's the starting point for people wanting to do more to help those they are worried about.
Facebook have a whole page dedicated to safety which was like a hidden (and I mean hidden) gem of things that Facebook do in the background when they receive a concern from someone. Take a look around next time you are on Facebook and see if you can find it. So how do we do we report something of concern? Something we are not comfortable with? I decided to have a search and it is not easy to find, but we have put together a handy bunch of pictures to show you how you report a post that leads you to a place of concern for a loved one or friend. On the post itself you hit the Report button, which brings you to a screen that looks like this:
By clicking "It shouldn’t be on Facebook" it will take you to a page like this:
From there, choose the "It’s threatening, violent or suicidal" link. You will see this, and from there you click the self injury or suicide button:
"This is all great," I hear you cry, "but what do Facebook actually do with this information? Do they instantly contact all my friends and share this news with them so they can try and keep me safe? Do they somehow in the cosmic universe tell my parents what is happening in my life?" The answer to those questions is no, Facebook merely respond with something they think may be helpful for that person and it looks like this:
As you can see, it gives the person you are worried about the opportunity to think about what they may need or want to do next. It is easy to follow and allows your friend to take some time out and read some handy tips or speak with a friend or to a helpline.
We certainly think this something worth knowing about and we really hope this helps people who are worried for those they love have some peace of mind that Facebook is concerned about them too. This is such a progressive move from the big bosses at Facebook and we here at SelfharmUK Love it!