When somebody announces to stream his suicide on Seesmic

Written on September 25, 2008 – 4:08 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

When Loic Le Meur pitched Seesmic to Holland’s most talented cross media talents, he also told them how he handled a suicide announcement on his video service. Quite an interesting story, so I figured I’d share it with you.

Le Meur was in his San Francisco-based office, watching a big LCD screen where the desperate person was depicted. “People emailed us that he looked very serious”, Le Meur said, “the guy was about to kill himself, what do you do?”

So while hundreds of Seesmic members tried to convince the man to not kill himself by posting comments on his videos, Le Meur called his lawyers. “We’re a US-based company after all”. They advised him to call the police, which Le Meur did.

“We gave the police his IP address. After twenty minutes, they knocked on his door somewhere in the middle of the US”. An interesting example of a case where security is more important than privacy.

Update: check out Loic’s comment, he actually gave the email address.

I hope you like that post!

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Loic Le Meur, privacy, seesmic, suicide

About the author: Ernst-Jan is blogger and co-organizer of BLOG08, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five. Follow him on Twitter or read his personal blog Dutchproblogger.com .

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8 comments/trackbacks to “When somebody announces to stream his suicide on Seesmic”

Sep 26, 2008: Seesmic saves user from necking himself
[...] According to The Next Web, Seesmic founder and CEO Loic Le Meur was in Seesmics’ San Fran office watching a big LCD screen where the desperate person was depicted. “People emailed us that he looked very serious”, Le Meur said, “the guy was about to kill himself, what do you do?” [...]

By Loic on Sep 25, 2008

Hi, let me correct myself here we actually gave the email address not the IP and the city that was enough and honestly I really hesitated hard but we may have saved a life so I do not regret.

[Reply]
By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on September 25th, 2008:
Alright, I’ll update. Would have done the same btw when I could save a life.

[Reply]
By michael arrington on September 25th, 2008:
glad you didn’t hesitate any longer than you did. It seems like an obvious decision.

[Reply]
By David on Sep 25, 2008

I wonder if it was possible to prevent such similar case about Finland school shooting…

[Reply]
By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on September 25th, 2008:
I guess so, if you hire some really good YouTube moderators and combine it with filters who can recognize speech in videos.

[Reply]
By David on September 25th, 2008:
Well gooole already have the technology that finds words on video, so they can achieve a pattern for alert… That’s me thinking matrix :)

[Reply]
By Boris on Sep 25, 2008

I have been cynical about seesmic before but once a service starts playing a role in life and death situations that is a clear signal that something important is happening..

[Reply]