I just found out about the current situation today, so I am a little out of the loop, but I'm not surprised.
Every forum like this eventually reaches this point.
I'm an old veteran of thes suicide forums, I was around on alt.suicide.methods and alt.suicide.holiday back in the old days, and the same thing happened there. Someone committed suicide, and there was an article published, and the group received a TON of negative attention. They couldn't ban it, because of how usenet groups work, but they got a ton of do-gooders in quoting the bible, telling people "get help, don't do it", etc.
But then after a few months, they stopped.
Because they didn't care. Noone really cares.
Banning sites like SS is just virtue signalling.
If this damn congressperson or the new york times, or the facebook dogooders really cared about suicidal people, this site wouldn't exist to start with.
I guarantee too in a few months, they will have forgotten about us. They will be complaining about violent video games, or internet porn, or rap music, or whatever else the media has decided america should get angry about.
If they really cared about suicidal people, they would be campaigning for more resources for sucidal people, better access to therapy, better quality therapists, better welfare programs for people who can't afford support, etc, etc, etc.
But no. Too much work. You'd need to actually care to do all that.
Instead, they go after the low-hanging fruit, the vulnerable people who have nowhere else to go.
They call us psychopaths, evil people trying to goad and encourage the vulnerable into ending their lives.
Actually, it's the opposite.
I have seen far, far worse toxicity and hatred on, for example, reddit, and other social media sites. I've had people saw the most vile, hateful, and cruel things to me, and that's not to mention instant perma-bans for polite disagreement.
That has never happened here.
In my experience, this community, and other marginalised communities, are usually the most welcoming and the least toxic.
Finally, To any other SS users that are worried about this site going down: Don't.
Like I said, I've been around.
I've been on the old usenet sites, I've been on the old santioned suicide subreddit when it got banned, and I was here from the beginning of this one (In fact I even asked the mods what they were doing to prevent exactly this from happening).
I even planned to create my own SS-type site when the subreddit went down, until this one popped up.
Even if this site goes down, which I doubt, another will pop up within a week. That's what happened when the reddit sub got banned, and the reddit subs that were created to replace it got.
If it doesn't, hell, I'll create one myself.
If they ban that, I'll create another one. On a different server. In a different country. Under a different name. If they dox me and put me in jail, or sue me into bankrupcy, someone else will create a site. If they sue them, another person will create a similar site.
Just look at all those file sharing sites. They tried to ban those for years (And the recording industry has far more money and far better lawyers that this congressperson does, because noone cares about the mentally ill) and sure, they banned a few, eventually, but more cropped up almost immediately.
When the sanctioned suicide sub was banned, this site appeared in about five days. All this time and effort and money going into banning a website which, even if successful (Which it probably won't be given the nature of the internet) will be recreated in less than a week.
People have a need to talk about this, to find a safe space to discuss suicide.
Instead of trying to ban us, they should try listening to us.
Every forum like this eventually reaches this point.
I'm an old veteran of thes suicide forums, I was around on alt.suicide.methods and alt.suicide.holiday back in the old days, and the same thing happened there. Someone committed suicide, and there was an article published, and the group received a TON of negative attention. They couldn't ban it, because of how usenet groups work, but they got a ton of do-gooders in quoting the bible, telling people "get help, don't do it", etc.
But then after a few months, they stopped.
Because they didn't care. Noone really cares.
Banning sites like SS is just virtue signalling.
If this damn congressperson or the new york times, or the facebook dogooders really cared about suicidal people, this site wouldn't exist to start with.
I guarantee too in a few months, they will have forgotten about us. They will be complaining about violent video games, or internet porn, or rap music, or whatever else the media has decided america should get angry about.
If they really cared about suicidal people, they would be campaigning for more resources for sucidal people, better access to therapy, better quality therapists, better welfare programs for people who can't afford support, etc, etc, etc.
But no. Too much work. You'd need to actually care to do all that.
Instead, they go after the low-hanging fruit, the vulnerable people who have nowhere else to go.
They call us psychopaths, evil people trying to goad and encourage the vulnerable into ending their lives.
Actually, it's the opposite.
I have seen far, far worse toxicity and hatred on, for example, reddit, and other social media sites. I've had people saw the most vile, hateful, and cruel things to me, and that's not to mention instant perma-bans for polite disagreement.
That has never happened here.
In my experience, this community, and other marginalised communities, are usually the most welcoming and the least toxic.
Finally, To any other SS users that are worried about this site going down: Don't.
Like I said, I've been around.
I've been on the old usenet sites, I've been on the old santioned suicide subreddit when it got banned, and I was here from the beginning of this one (In fact I even asked the mods what they were doing to prevent exactly this from happening).
I even planned to create my own SS-type site when the subreddit went down, until this one popped up.
Even if this site goes down, which I doubt, another will pop up within a week. That's what happened when the reddit sub got banned, and the reddit subs that were created to replace it got.
If it doesn't, hell, I'll create one myself.
If they ban that, I'll create another one. On a different server. In a different country. Under a different name. If they dox me and put me in jail, or sue me into bankrupcy, someone else will create a site. If they sue them, another person will create a similar site.
Just look at all those file sharing sites. They tried to ban those for years (And the recording industry has far more money and far better lawyers that this congressperson does, because noone cares about the mentally ill) and sure, they banned a few, eventually, but more cropped up almost immediately.
When the sanctioned suicide sub was banned, this site appeared in about five days. All this time and effort and money going into banning a website which, even if successful (Which it probably won't be given the nature of the internet) will be recreated in less than a week.
People have a need to talk about this, to find a safe space to discuss suicide.
Instead of trying to ban us, they should try listening to us.
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