Dismantling the allegation that we're pro-suicide.

[nohopenofuture31]

I love the way you worded that this is pro-choice. And not to get political, but this is exactly the same argument I make for those who are pro-choice on the other big body autonomy issue. No one wants to have to do it, and people will do it anyway (just not safely) if it's banned. This forum is so loving and supportive of people period. just having a place to come where others understand what you're feeling and won't just tell you to pick yourself up and drudge on is helpful. I've been here a very short time but have never seen anyone encourage someone to CTB. I've just seen support and advice on how to be safer

 

[thickly_settled]

Who cares? It's good to be pro-suicide.

 

[Ash]

Who cares? It's good to be pro-suicide.

*looks around for the reassuring cue that this is satire*

 

[Holu]

When I first heard of this site, I was concerned it was destined to be a.s.h 2.0. And though I've been absent for the past few months, everytime I've experienced an extreme pro-suicider, or suicide bullying/encouragement it's been swiftly handled by mods. Unlike a.s.h the moderation from this forum has been nothing but above and beyond(big shoutout to DOT). I truly hope this media push that SaSu is a pro-suicide cult ceases, as losing this website will surely cause more harm, at least in short term(likely long term too since it's not like people won't find other similar and potentially worse avenues).

Thank you Rain and the other moderators for having to put up with all this bullshit. I'm sorry this is added to your guys already full plate. But just know you guys do a wonderful job and provide a haven of hope and compassion for those who have been devoid of both for so long. We appreciate you more than you could ever imagine <3.

 

[Dot]

Who cares? It's good to be pro-suicide.

Gd fr wh/

If u wnt 2 b 'pro-suicde' bcse tht = wht u trly wnt fr urslf thn tht = ur decsn bt wantng suicde fr othr ppl = frnkly sciopathc

SaSu jst respcts whre othr ppl r in thr own lves & spports whtevr thy wnt fr thmslves whle also givng thm plce t/ tlk thngs thru & ptentlly recvr

 

[Holu]

Who cares? It's good to be pro-suicide.

Idk if it's necessarily good to be pro-suicide. I think what you're trying to convey is it's good to be anti-suffering, which suicide can be seen as the end all method of which. Pro-choice is preferable. Humans are uniquely different, and so forcing opposing or extreme beliefs are dangerous and harmful. In the same way anti sasu Pro-lifers are disapproved because they are forcing their ideologies in attempt to remove SaSu, so to can pro-suiciders, who might inadvertently cause harm to someone who might not be fully committed or sure of their actions.

 

[SomePeacePlease]

Sorry for posting here so long after last message, but for me this site is not about pro-suicide or pro-life. It's a site about people that are tired to the core of their mind and soul. I've spent half my(42M) life battling this. 24 medications and 20 ECT-treatments.
I'm worse off than when I started. I'm on medication that I know are heavily additive(written out by my GP), and I just don't have anything more to give. Even my own parents say they would understand if I CTB.

It all comes down to the trauma I'd cause my young(8-years old) son..

 

[maggot]

Yeah based on my short time on these forums, I have yet to seen a pro suicide poster.

When someone wishes to CTB, wishing them peace and that its painless is being pro choice. A lot of people confuse that with being pro suicide when in reality, we are letting them make their own choice

Same here. Respecting people's choice because you can relate to them is not being pro suicide. There probably are some bad apples here like in any online community but I have yet to see them.

 

[ncallingme]

I'm not really pro-suicide, but I'm pro choice, I love it when people get better, I just want people to have the choice to do so, but many don't have the option to do so.

 

[SadCookie51]

I am grateful that there is a forum like this. I can't imagine closing this website. I thank the administrators for their work

 

[blue]

I am grateful that there is a forum like this. I can't imagine closing this website. I thank the administrators for their work

I agree. I come here at my worst and it makes me feel more in control and that I have a choice which helps me to go on a little longer.

 

[SadCookie51]

I agree. I come here at my worst and it makes me feel more in control and that I have a choice which helps me to go on a little longer.

ME TOO. I hope you will sort everything out quickly and won't have to come here. I wish you only solutions and a happy life

 

[Unspoken7612]

To be blunt, I think there's a big disconnect between the OP's definition of "pro-suicide" ("everyone should kill themselves at all times") and most people's definitions.

This site has a stickied thread, posted by an account which seems to represent the site itself, listing ten suicide methods and detailed instructions. That just instantly blows the credibility of any claim to not be pro-suicide unless you have an extremely blinkered perspective.

The general tone of discussion moves beyond "a safe place to talk about suicidality" and into "validating other people's suicidal feelings". The site tends towards nihilism (as opposed to existentialism), with a subset of users actively encouraging others to think of existence as inherently intolerable suffering. Threads encouraging others to imagine a positive afterlife also remain up. People announcing their attempts get told "I hope you find peace", which romanticises suicide.

Is a lot of the reporting hyperbolic and alarmist? Yes. Are there plenty of users here who are genuinely pro-choice? Also yes. But the forum as a whole has a pro-suicide culture and permits all but the most direct content.

 

[betternever2havbeen]

This site has a stickied thread, posted by an account which seems to represent the site itself, listing ten suicide methods and detailed instructions. That just instantly blows the credibility of any claim to not be pro-suicide unless you have an extremely blinkered perspective.

It's just information. There are sites like talktofrank that give people honest info about drugs, would you say they're "pro drugs" or are they just trying to educate people so they can make an informed choice about whether they want to take drugs or not?

The general tone of discussion moves beyond "a safe place to talk about suicidality" and into "validating other people's suicidal feelings". The site tends towards nihilism (as opposed to existentialism), with a subset of users actively encouraging others to think of existence as inherently intolerable suffering. Threads encouraging others to imagine a positive afterlife also remain up. People announcing their attempts get told "I hope you find peace", which romanticises suicide.

It's a balancing act trying to support people on here with all the myriad reasons people have for being suicidal, and trying to say the right thing, all whilst managing your own suicidality. Maybe you can give some examples of how best you think people can support others on here? Are posters "validating other people's suicidal feelings" or are they just saying they feel the same way and showing empathy? Jury is out on whether users are encouraging others to think existence is suffering or just giving their opinion on life. I don't think we should have to lie about that. If you think life's wonderful then what I or anyone else thinks about it shouldn't matter.

 

[Unspoken7612]

It's just information. There are sites like talktofrank that give people honest info about drugs, would you say they're "pro drugs" or are they just trying to educate people so they can make an informed choice about whether they want to take drugs or not?

The TalkToFrank page on heroin includes a relatively short section on how to take heroin which does not give specifics. Compare this to the detailed descriptions of how to use the methods detailed in the resource megathread. The OP of the "night-night" method for instance is solely instructional. The Exit Bag thread recommends lies to tell suspicious retailers.

It's a balancing act trying to support people on here with all the myriad reasons people have for being suicidal, and trying to say the right thing, all whilst managing your own suicidality. Maybe you can give some examples of how best you think people can support others on here? Are posters "validating other people's suicidal feelings" or are they just saying they feel the same way and showing empathy? Jury is out on whether users are encouraging others to think existence is suffering or just giving their opinion on life. I don't think we should have to lie about that. If you think life's wonderful then what I or anyone else thinks about it shouldn't matter.

While these are valid considerations, and you're right that I could be more constructive, the central point is that an uninitiated viewer who stumbles across this sub-forum is likely to reasonably conclude it is pro-suicide.

 

[Emeralds]

It's just information. There are sites like talktofrank that give people honest info about drugs, would you say they're "pro drugs" or are they just trying to educate people so they can make an informed choice about whether they want to take drugs or not?

This site does more than just give information. Many people send people links telling them where they can buy the means they need to end their life. That's not being impartial. That's pushing them towards suicide. If that's not encouraging someone to end their life, I don't know what is.

You can't compare this site to other sites. What happens on other sites has nothing to do with what happens on here. Do people on Talk To Frank provide links with sources if someone decides to take drugs?

It's a balancing act trying to support people on here with all the myriad reasons people have for being suicidal, and trying to say the right thing, all whilst managing your own suicidality. Maybe you can give some examples of how best you think people can support others on here? Are posters "validating other people's suicidal feelings" or are they just saying they feel the same way and showing empathy?

From reading the posts, it seems that many people on here are actually validating other people's wish to die rather than just showing empathy (even if it's not intentional). It's a very fine line to walk. Most people just agree with everything that the OP says and are just reinforcing the OP's belief that their situation is hopeless and suicide is the best solution. It's possible to show empathy and tell someone that their situation is terrible and you have been through something similar and understand how they feel without actually validating their wish to die. Just because someone offers a different view point or tells you to consider other options carefully before making your final decision doesn't mean that they are invalidating
your feelings or what you have gone through. That is what a lot of people on here seem to confuse.

Jury is out on whether users are encouraging others to think existence is suffering or just giving their opinion on life. I don't think we should have to lie about that.

These people do more than just give their opinion. They state that life is meaningless and life is all suffering for everyone all the time as if it's an absolute truth. Many of them insist that anyone who has ever been happy or enjoyed anything in life is either lying, stupid, or delusional. They argue and insult anyone who disagrees. They obviously are trying to convince other people that life is bad for everyone or else they wouldn't keep arguing with people and insulting them.

If you think life's wonderful then what I or anyone else thinks about it shouldn't matter.

It does matter. Many people on here are very vulnerable. Everyone on here hasn't decided for certain that they are going to ctb. There are lots of people who are still on the fence and haven't given up completely yet. People don't live in a vacuum. They are influenced by their environment and what other people say. They have done studies where people who spend lots of time on social media admit that they feel worse afterwards. They are more anxious and depressed. These people aren't depressed or suicidal. They are still affected negatively even though they have good mental health.

If someone who is already depressed and thinking about suicide comes on here, they can be affected negatively. Reading thousands of posts where people tell you things like life is meaningless, everything you do is a waste of time, life is all suffering, things will never get better, all people are awful, no one will help you, etc is not going to help someone. It's only going to make them feel worse and discourage them from getting help. It only validates their worst fears reinforces their belief that suicide is the right option for them.
People who have these negative views on life should be more mindful of how their words can affect others especially on a forum like this.

 

[betternever2havbeen]

This site does more than just give information. Many people send people links telling them where they can buy the means they need to end their life. That's not being impartial. That's pushing them towards suicide. If that's not encouraging someone to end their life, I don't know what is.

That's not the site though that's individual members, how do you think the site can police what happens through DMs? And members have asked for the sources in the first place it's not like it's unsolicited. I've asked for sources and not even used them so how has anyone encouraged me? Having said that I don't give out sources myself so maybe I'm a hypocrite there.

From reading the posts, it seems that many people on here are actually validating other people's wish to die rather than just showing empathy (even if it's not intentional). It's a very fine line to walk. Most people just agree with everything that the OP says and are just reinforcing the OP's belief that their situation is hopeless and suicide is the best solution. It's possible to show empathy and tell someone that their situation is terrible and you have been through something similar and understand how they feel without actually validating their wish to die. Just because someone offers a different view point or tells you to consider other options carefully before making your final decision doesn't mean that they are invalidating
your feelings or what you have gone through. That is what a lot of people on here seem to confuse.

I don't know I've never seen anyone say "yes you're right your situation is completely hopeless, CTB is definitely your only option" and lots of times people tell you to consider other options. I try to do that myself but at the end of the day it all depends on how much the OP has even shared about their situation.

These people do more than just give their opinion. They state that life is meaningless and life is all suffering for everyone all the time as if it's an absolute truth. Many of them insist that anyone who has ever been happy or enjoyed anything in life is either lying, stupid, or delusional. They argue and insult anyone who disagrees. They obviously are trying to convince other people that life is bad for everyone or else they wouldn't keep arguing with people and insulting them.

Well that's often a depressed person's thought process, we get no joy out of life whatsoever so we can't understand anything else. How can you really expect anything different on a site about literal suicide? If someone has only been depressed for a couple weeks and is usually someone who enjoys life I agree they shouldn't really be on here and it won't help them. Perhaps the site is too open to those that are not long-term severely depressed and needs better vetting although I think the site should be welcome to everyone. Thing is the media drove lots of people here who never would've found this place otherwise. Back when I joined you had to really be deep in researching methods to stumble upon this forum but now it's a lot easier thanks to all the attention. It's THAT infamous site now.

It does matter. Many people on here are very vulnerable. Everyone on here hasn't decided for certain that they are going to ctb. There are lots of people who are still on the fence and haven't given up completely yet. People don't live in a vacuum. They are influenced by their environment and what other people say. They have done studies where people who spend lots of time on social media admit that they feel worse afterwards. They are more anxious and depressed. These people aren't depressed or suicidal. They are still affected negatively even though they have good mental health.

People get depressed on social media because it's fake and toxic and they're bullied on there told they're ugly told they should go kill themselves etc. that doesn't happen on here it's more philosophical discussions on the meaning of life, nihilism etc. but we'll have to agree to disagree on the danger of that type of discussion. You make some good points but I think my argument is that saying this site is "pro-suicide" makes it seem like a concerted effort by members to push others over the edge when it's just that depressed people are gonna talk about being depressed...besides so many people have said they're still around because of this site.

 

[avoid]

I find solace in browsing this forum and don't think it's inherently pro-suicide. So I hope this website will stay online and accessible indefinitely. That said, I do think that a lot of members turn a blind eye to messages that encourage suicide ideation with insinuations and indirect references. But such messages are often left open for interpretation so perhaps I'm wrong. By the way, that's why I prefer explicit phrasing.

how do you think the site can police what happens through DMs?

With the numerous (automated) moderation tools for private conversations that are available as forum plugins. For example, flag keywords, moderator access to all members' private messages, and advanced search for all DMs. This is not to say that the administrator should install such plugins, but that it's feasible to monitor and police DMs.

I don't know I've never seen anyone say "yes you're right your situation is completely hopeless, CTB is definitely your only option" and lots of times people tell you to consider other options.

I think you're right, except whether a message is validating and encouraging is subject to how the reader interprets it. The phrase "you should kill yourself" leaves little room for interpretation. But anything less direct can still be validating suicide ideation. For example, I consider the popular phrase "I hope you find what you're looking for" harmful if it's a reply to someone explicitly mentioning their plans on committing suicide—contact matters. If OP is looking to commit suicide and you "hope they find what they're looking for", then what OP looks for is suicide and you're implicitly validating, if not encouraging, OP to follow through with their plan and commit suicide. I understand this is not always the case or intention but words and phrasing matters, as does the context. The same phrase is used on recovery threads where someone tries to, or has succeeded to, better themselves. In this context, you're validating or encouraging OP to continue their healing process.

The same applies to the phrase "I hope you find peace", although the word peace is less open to interpretation. I'm aware of two interpretations: you make peace with life and continue living; or death can bring you peace from suffering. The former validates healing and the latter death/suicide. The latter is the result of countless threads that boil down to "life is suffering and only death brings peace." This allows members to use the phrase as a euphemism for "death brings peace" on suicide threads, essentially insinuating that suicide is the escape to OP's suffering.

My intention is not to accuse members who use this phrase regularly of encouraging suicide because the phrase is normalized on this forum. The vast majority wants to show empathy to comfort someone. I just see the use of this phrase differently despite how well meaning it may be. And I took your quote as an opportunity to vent my opinion a bit. I don't expect this forum to outlaw the phrase because that would probably cause an uproar.

Many of them insist that anyone who has ever been happy or enjoyed anything in life is either lying, stupid, or delusional. They argue and insult anyone who disagrees.

I got the short end of this stick once. The person even invited others to give their opinion so I did, not knowing that I would get berated for having an opposing view: a wrong view for stupid people. But I don't think the website or moderators are at fault for the behavior of individual members. I think the few limitations on open discussion is what sets this forum apart from the rest. Prohibiting certain views and topics would go against this spirit. Everyone should be an adult here and as such, everyone can set their own limits and decide in which threads they want to participate.

 

[guitarsteve]

That is what always happens unfortunately in this society. People only "see" (I don't know any alternative term) the morally incorrect side.

For example, concerning euthanasia for the disabled, there is a group of (disabled) people who are strictly against the idea of euthanasia being available, or even recommended as an option for disabled people as they believe its coercion (its not), speaking as if they're speaking for everyone which is far from the truth.
Yet, the group of disabled people who are supportive of euthanasia because they have enough compassion, are mostly ignored, at least from what I see on twitter/X.

Those who are against euthanasia for themselves because the idea of death strikes fear into their hearts, or for some other reason, can just ignore it. They don't have the right to take away the ability to make that decision universally just because they're afraid to make said decision themselves, or because they're just against the idea of euthanasia, and that opinion is dependent on their personal moral outlook which is not the universal stance. It's just not right.

Unfortunately its probably impossible that those journalists and "advocates" who seek to ban this forum who pull these false accusations without any factual basis from their asses will ever read this, let alone click on this thread because they're too emotionally invested in the prospect of banning this forum with accusations based on lies and cruelty, so hearing any ideas arguing against their scheme, with valid arguments justifying said stance (something that they themselves cannot provide despite being journalists), would piss them off.
And like you said they're too influenced by sensational journalism rather than factual and credible journalists so that'd play a part in their unwillingness to read this thread, and maybe change their views or consider our side of the story.

Their disgusting yet somehow praised approach to this is just based on straight up laziness, ignorance, unrighteousness, and complete disregard for how the opposition and the vulnerable (us) feels.

Rather than actually doing research and coming up with factual arguments to justify their stance on this matter its easier for them to manipulate the public into believing this or that at the cost of the feeling of insecurity and increased suicidal ideation in some cases on the behalf of their opposition, who already suffer from these feelings or even worse to begin with.

This behavior, while claiming to support mental health initiatives (which is likely why they seek to ban this forum) ironically and unsurprisingly, considering their stance on this argument, contributes to the dehumanization and harassment of those who may be most in need of help on the grounds of being apart of a supposed "pro-suicide-encouragement-cult".
Their willingness to use coercive tactics and harassment under the guise of "moral righteousness" falls far short from the morally heroic behavior that them and their supporters make it out to be.

It's really baffling how journalists, who are entrusted with the responsibility of doing research and afterwards reporting with an unbiased opinion fail to uphold the normalized standard and fulfill the basic expectation, but relying probably solely on obviously biased sources, aren't seen as untrustworthy.
And even when said biased sources admit

Most members who have been active in this forum for a while know that the media has blatantly misrepresented the purpose and philosophy of this forum for years. For example, let's take a look at these articles here.

'This is horrifying': How a pro-suicide forum encourages sodium nitrite use in Canada, U.K.

Although Mississauga man Kenneth Law currently faces criminal charges for allegedly selling sodium nitrite and other lethal supplies for the purpose of self-harm, one issue that remains unresolved is the manner through which many of Law’s alleged customers appear to have found him and his...

toronto.ctvnews.ca

There is a pro-suicide website linked to deaths in Australia. Getting it shut down is not so simple

There's been a spike in deaths in Australia linked to a lethal substance frequently discussed on the offshore forum. Some of those who've died spent time on the site, which experts say has guided suicidal people toward death instead of away from it.

www.abc.net.au

The titles already give it away and contribute a lot to the public opinion that we are "pro-suicide".

We're more than just a "pro-suicide" forum as the media likes to smear us, very often implying we're some kind of cult. We're a very diverse community with thousands of members, with most of them struggling to the extent that they think about suicide, some more than others, and that results in a wide variety of content, from conversations about recovery and life to discussions around suicide and the right to die. And yes, I strictly reject the claim that we are "pro-suicide," people in our forum recover all the time and when they announce they're doing better, we cheer them on in this community. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] This is just a small selection of threads I've found by doing a 5 minute search on this forum and all of them are members announcing their departure because they found something to live for and in some cases, our community directly contributed to that change. For example, here are two specific threads where members of the forum specifically point out this community has contributed to their recovery, again - with nothing but positive feedback under these threads. Nobody is telling them to change their mind, nobody is encouraging suicide, nobody is frowing upon their decision. It's nothing but compassion and acceptance for someone's decision. This is not pro-suicide. This is pro-choice.

not suicidal anymore :( goodbye thread

I realised I actually got to the point where I don’t feel like I belong here anymore. I don’t feel the need to die as much as I did. It feels incredibly weird and wrong as I really thought this was what I actually wanted really bad and that there is no chance that it would ever change. And here...

sanctioned-suicide.net

I'm leaving this site

I think my recovery is going well so I'm going to leave this website for now. I found an amazing person who I love very much, she managed to heal me in ways i didn't think were possible. We spent Valentines Day together and i think i finally want to live. This recovery section really helped me a...

sanctioned-suicide.net

Okay. And there is not one single case that I'm aware of, where someone reported significant improvement of their situation, which then resulted in an overhelmingly negative response to that thread. It just doesn't happen. I gave the examples above. If you can prove me wrong, do it. There are so many threads of people basically announcing 'hey, I'm doing better, SaSu helped me through that journey and I'm going to leave this forum now to enjoy my life' and that's a good thing and these threads are always met with kindness and praise as I've demonstrated above. How does that match the accusation of us being "pro-suicide"? Doesn't this kind of behavior displayed in these threads demonstrate a pro-choice position of the overhelming majority of participating members in our forum? This is direct and irrefutable evidence that this community is not pro-suicide but passionately pro-choice. Furthermore, there is not one thing I've said in the last 5 years that would suggest I'm pro-death or pro-suicide. And I think that's quite significant given I'm the admin of this forum, right. I made very clear that I'm pro-choice and everything I've said so far in my position underlines that notion. I have also made clear towards bad actors who try to exploit this forum that suicide encouragement isn't okay. Sadly, trolls with no intuition and nuance sometimes mistake us for 4chan 2.0 and invade this forum with the intention to cause harm. But there is a difference between encouraging suicide and respecting someone's voluntary and well thought-out choice to exercise their right to die. One is pro-suicide and one is pro-choice. That tiny bit of nuance sadly goes unnoticed by the majority of journalists who report on this forum.

The problem is that most people who cover this forum simply don't understand language. The media suggests we're "pro-suicide" - and that's a position that prefers suicide over all other options, right? That's at least how I understand that word. Being pro-suicide means you think suicide is the right answer to every problem, that you should commit suicide if you're thinking about it, without any second thoughts. And that's how we're framed. But that's just not true, we don't suggest to anyone what's the right decision, that in itself makes us pro-choice per definition. It's up to anyone in this forum to make their own decisions, we don't tell anyone what to do - that's explicitly drawn out in the rules. And what you do with your own life is by the way a deeply personal matter, what decision someone makes in regards to their own welfare is not the business of anyone here and anyone out there either. If you want to live is a question only you can answer. Okay, so it's factually inaccurate to report the entire community, thousands of active members with a diverse background and history, as generally "pro-suicide" - as if we're a homogenic hivemind that all have the same thoughts and ideas, it's simply dehumanizing and insulting. And the philosophy of this forum underlines the fact that we are pro-choice very clearly. So again, the constant reporting of this forum as a pro-suicide forum has no factual basis other than a extreme misunderstanding of what it means to be pro-choice in regards to suicide. And again, recognising and accepting someone's decision to exercise their right to die isn't "pro-suicide" the same way that accepting and recognising someone's decision to (not) have an abortion isn't "pro-(or anti-)abortion" either. It's a "pro-choice" stance in both cases because in both cases you're merely accepting someone's decision and action that are expressions of individual and bodily autonomy. You make the decision, nobody else - that's the philosophy of this forum. And giving you a choice to make your own decisions, even when "destructive" (and that's again a question of perspective), is pro-choice. That's the consequence of a liberal interpretation of individual autonomy. And that alone is the determining factor if a position is pro-choice or forced-anything, such as pro-life or pro-suicide. This forum doesn't make the case that there should be more suicides. In fact we say there should be less suicide but as I've pointed out in my response to the BBC, the methods which are applied to achieve that goal are wrong and cause more harm than good. I've also outlined this here in my most recent thread about SN regulation. But I don't think I have seen a representative amount of members make the case that more suicides are a preferrable outcome, we as a community hope that the lives of people who use this forum improve, of course. That's also the position of every single moderator, by the way. Me included. And I would never promote someone to the position of a moderator who doesn't have the best interest of every single member in mind. I have written countless posts and threads discussing suicide prevention and I have literally begged the media to use this forum as a resource to better understand suicidality. But instead they're demonizing us because that's just easier. Don't get it twisted, the current reporting is a mix of both ideological barriers which prevents people from understanding the purpose of this forum but also straight-up laziness, which prevents people from doing their own investigative research and instead they merely adapt the narrative of other journalists that's and why I'm writing this thread right now.

So again, we're pro-choice. And being pro-choice always comes with an accepting notion for the decision you make, right. When I accept and respect a decision you make, that doesn't mean I encourage that decision. These are differences between encouraging a decision or acknowledging and respecting it. So we're pro-whatever-decision-you-make-for-your-own-life as long as you don't harm anyone else. That's inherently pro-choice and until you demonstrate and explain to us why we're more pro-suicide than pro-choice, why it's logically correct to call an entire community of suicidal people collectively pro-suicide, I will reject any article that follows that narrative and this thread here is going to be the standard response to any future articles that calls us pro-suicide and in the future, any questions about this forum can be answered by reading this thread because it contains all the answers you need to know. I also don't take any journalist seriously who writes obviously biased articles and I have no desire to interact with them. I also hope that answers why knocking on my door is going to be a waste of time... right, Angus?

Next, now that I've outlined that we're pro-choice, I'm going to explain to you why it's the morally correct position. If you want to infringe on someone's individual and bodily autonomy, you need very good reasons - which hopefully is a statement that journalists out there covering this forum agree with. And that applies even more so to a fundamental human right like someone's right to die. Your subjective feeling that someone prolonging their suffering might be the better outcome long-term doesn't outweight the perceived emotional and mental distress of the person who wants to die, so their decision to end said pain is always more important than your demand that they should keep suffering. In other words: you do not override someone's lack of consent to stay alive. You have no right to say that they should have to endure their (physical or mental) pain for your own emotional peace, you have no right to force them. We use the same logic to justify abortion, the needs of someone who seeks out an abortion is more important than your subjective feeling as to why it's wrong to have one. And that's literally the concept of individual autonomy and it's the empathic approach to the question whetever someone has a right to die. Relief from pain is a good thing and we need to stop pretending it's not. Of course, if you don't have any empathy for suicidal people, you'll be unable to see that. And if you've never been suicidal, you have no idea how it feels like to be in that position, to sit on hot coals, to suffer so much that you just want to die. That's why suicidal people hate when non-suicidal people speak for and over us and sadly, that's what the media has been doing all along, constantly infantilizing suicidal people in the process and pretending to act in our best interest as if our input doesn't count, and they're showing us exactly everything that's wrong in our world. We have so many members in this forum, like we literally count 45k registered members at this point and it's concerning that the exchange between journalists who want to understand this forum and members of this forum who agree with the philosophy of this place hasn't happened in 5 years. And that's not our fault, I know that members have reached out to these journalists who call us pro-suicide. The problem is, that they're not interested in interviewing people who could humanize Sanctioned Suicide and justify the existence of this forum, as an alternative to the current oppressive approach that's the status quo when it comes to preventing suicide. On the other hand - the exchange between journalists and people who oppose this forum for very irrational reasons has happened very frequently, and that's the problem. There is an inbalance in the research that's done to understand this forum and represent both sides. In other words, there has been no attempt to understand us, that was never the intent - from the start.

And yes, there are some people, for example staff members, who do not want to give an interview but that's because there has been no attempt so far to accurately portray this forum in good-faith and no sign that these reporters are ready to protect people's privacy. But there are enough people who would be open to given an interview to defend SaSu's existence, for example here and here - but as I said, interviewing people who use this forum and giving them space to talk about the necessacity of a website like this forum would contradict the narrative so it doesn't happen. Again, I reached out to a journalist a few years ago, before I was even a moderator, trying to defend this forum and we did actually talk for almost an hour but they never published that interview.

So yeah, the constant misrepresentation of this forum is annoying but it isn't surprising given the journalists covering this forum aren't interested in objective and factual reporting and instead have always emotionalized and dramatized the conversation around this forum by highlighting the apparent repulsive and outrageous nature of this forum or by posting the names and faces of members who have exercised their right to die, as if their implied opposition (none of them have spoken out against SaSu) to suicide has more value and legitimacy than the needs of those who want to die, while also pushing the reasons why they were suicidal in the first place into the background and focusing on their membership in this forum instead to make the forum look responsible for their decision to end their lives and not the real life problems that haunted them every day. And I think that's disrespectful to the people who have passed away. None of those articles are written with the intention to motivate systemic change and more awareness for things that make suicide an attractive option in the first place, it's all about writing bombastic headlines, shifting the blame to the forum. It's obvious. Why wouldn't these journalists want to talk about the systemic causes of suicide, which is certainly a dry topic and instead make a forum responsible which is merely a symptom of a dysfunctional society? We're not the reason why people want to die. According to the data I've seen, the increase in suicide numbers that so many journalists complain about has started before this forum even existed and most members who make an account here in this forum communicate in their registration that they've been suicidal before, sometimes for years - and that's why they want to join this forum. The forum clearly isn't the problem here. They come to this forum as suicidal people because this place has to offer something that's appealing to them... So wouldn't it be interesting for these journalists to look into the reasons why these members who make an account here were suicidal for years, instead of blaming us? It's quite easy, because it doesn't fit the narrative that we're the bad guys.

Another issue is that a big portion of the journalists who are covering this place get most of their information from people who oppose this forum and these are very often the protagonists of their coverage. These are people who oppose us for ideological reasons and push for legislative change to criminalize this forum because they have lost someone to suicide themselves. The problem is, they do not care about the systemic causes of suicide that drove their loved ones to take drastic measures to escape their pain. What they care about is deplatforming the forum because we're an easy scapegoat. And that makes sense, it's easier to cope with the idea that this forum pushed someone into suicide instead of reflecting and thinking about potential signs for someone's suicidality you might have missed or holding the people in charge (politicans and lawmakers) accountable who are blocking systemic change which would allow struggling people to live under better conditions. And shouldn't that be the goal, create a more compassionate and empathic society that makes people want to stay alive voluntarily instead of relying on coercision to prolong people's lives? There is so much you can do to improve people's lives that doesn't attack people's freedom, right. Not all but the majority of those journalists that have covered us and portrayed us in a very negative light in the past are directly in touch with people who are campaigning to shut us down and sadly they refuse to cover this forum with the same neutrality that's applied for the coverage of other, equally controversial, topics. They throw journalistic standards out the window. Journalists like Angus Crawford, Aisling Murphy and Thomas Daigle have never investigated this community properly because if they did, they would know we're anything but "pro-suicide" - as I've explained above - and they would also know that describing a community with 45'000 total members with one word ("pro-suicide") is the most dishonest thing you could possibly do. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. That's the result of listening to grieving people. What they're experiencing is without a doubt painful but they're not good picks for a level-headed and rational conversation on ethical issues like suicide (prevention) and the right to die. Journalists took the input of these people who want to see the forum gone as reliable information without fact-checking claims and taking into consideration that there might be a certain bias, influenced by emotional pain. And that's how you end up with very one-sided reporting, over and over again. Because again, these people have a very clear interest in framing this forum in the worst way possible and feeding those journalists false information, for example that we allow members to use this forum as a marketplace or that we encourage suicide when none of that is true. Their self-proclaimed goal is to make us disappear - that's obvious when you look their Twitter activity and who they blame for the death of their loves ones. And these opponents of our forum are motivated by very negative emotions and that's why they doxxed members of our forum in the past, something that's always brushed aside when these people are interviewed and portrayed as victims in these articles. For example, Kelli Wilson - who is one of the most vocal opponent of this forum has doxxed a member of our community, Catherine Adenekan has done the same and on top of that celebrated the suicide of a member who has taken their own life, mocking their goodbye thread and Lee Cooper has repeatedly threatened to murder the founders of this forum on Twitter yet they're still seen as credible sources and still featured in their coverage on our forum despite the very obvious fact that they have an agenda and they will do anything necessary - literally walking over corpses at this point - to achieve their goals. They also harassed a trans woman who they mistook for me relentlessly. They make very clear that doxxing suicidal people is part of their playbook. These repulsive actions aren't the topic of this thread but it's important to mention that these people are not credible sources for anything related to this forum. I might dive into their problematic online conduct in more detail in a seperate thread if people are interested in that. But they're vigilantes who take the law into their own hands because we're operating this forum 100% legally and none of their political efforts to deplatform us have paid out. That's why they're harassing and intimidating those who run this forum and those who participate as members. They have every incentive in the world to push a certain narrative and spreading lies and misinformation is part of their strategy.

But it gets even worse. Some of the journalists I've mentioned above are members of the anti-Sanctioned Suicide group on Facebook.

This group was founded by Kelli Wilson, the same person that created the website Fixthe26. The same person who also doxxed a member of our forum as I just mentioned before and the same person who said my predecessor needs to get publicly executed and claimed I'm not a human. Does anyone here think that it's a coincidence that journalists who who call us pro-suicide and mirror the "pro-suicide" narrative without wasting any time to fact-check anything are also members of a Facebook group founded by someone who wants to take down the forum and is on the record encouraging physical violence and doxxing someone who committed suicide one month later? I think that's a very questionable connection there for journalists who are supposed to remain some objectivity.

We also made a Twitter thread about this problematic alliance and Thomas Daigle has since left that group while Aisling Murphy still remains a member. I guess some journalists aren't even pretending to be neutral here. Kelli's Twitter account has been banned as a result of all the harassement towards our community and she is actively evading her ban right now with her new account.

Again, unlike the journalists who write these articles I'm not here to tell you what to think. But I find it very suspicious that journalists who have described us as "pro-suicide" (repeatedly) are in a group of vigilantes trying to take down this forum - with questionable methods - and it looks a bit to me like some people are using their position as "reporters" to act as someone's mouth piece. I don't think it's a coincidence that these articles are written like that. Kelli also never made it a secret that she sends emails to journalists, politicians and authorities to influence the narrative - and she has admitted on Twitter that she doesn't care if the information is correct as long as it furthers their agenda.

That's how badly the coverage around our forum is compromissed, specific individuals were able to take advantage of naive journalists and influence the framing of this website. How could you question the framing of a grieving parent? You don't, you just look at the frontpage of this forum and you know all you need to know - if you're a lazy journalist. So again, journalists covering our forum never tried to understand us and why we exist, there was never any investigative research and an attempt to portray this community fairly. It's also odd that they also never even looked at my post history in this forum. I mean if they aren't interested in obtaining a representative view of our community on subjects like suicide and suicide prevention, something that would debunk the claim that we're pro-suicide, they could at least look at my posts - not that I'm representative in any way but I'm the admin after all, right - if you really wanted to know what's the intention behind a forum, what are the thoughts that went into it, how its existence is justified, you could look at my output and include some of my posts into these articles. There are countless threads and posts that explain my position on suicide. But they don't even do that because it directly contradicts their reporting because I've said plenty of things that highlight the importance of meaningful suicide prevention. And no, infringing on someone's autonomy isn't meaningful suicide prevention

And it's remarkable that journalists covering this forum until 2021 made a big deal out of the fact that the founders identified as incels, evidence that supposedly highlighted the sinister nature of this community [1][2][3][4]. You don't really need to do any investigative research into this community anymore when you can just brush this forum aside as some malicious incel trap and that was the framing on this forum back in the days. But for some reason, now that I'm running this community, backgrounds suddenly aren't important anymore. They've never mentioned my background - that I'm a trans woman. There were so many articles that made their coverage on this forum all about the founders' identification as incels but none of the articles that were released after they stepped down highlighted the fact that I'm suicidal myself and a trans woman, someone who supports left-wing policies. They never mentioned in any of the articles that I'm suffering from mental health issues myself and that this could maybe be the reason why I have a different approach to suicide. Wouldn't that be important context when you cover this forum? Wouldn't that give insight into the why I'm doing this? Yeah, maybe if you point out that the person running this forum is trans and has a long history of struggling with several mental health conditions themselves it would kinda ruin your well crafted narrative about evil incels who run this forum with malicious pro-suicide intentions, right. And that's certainly a reputation that haunts this forum to this day. I think we all know why they media has pretended that I don't exist, in the 2.5 years I've been running this forum, they have mentioned my username once... they're clearly trying to pretend that I don't exist while they still harass and annoy one of the founders, even going so far to camp three days in front of this house just a few months ago when he hasn't been involved in this forum for over 2 years. Because it serves the narrative that we're an evil pro-suicide forum and that's easier to sell when you can make an incel responsible for the existence of this forum because it allows you to just ignore the left-wing, anti-oppressive trans woman who has been suicidal for many years, who supports individual autonomy and meaningful suicide prevention via systemic change. In other words, talking about my background would humanize this community to a degree. It's all tied to their narrative.

And no, I'm not saying these journalists are conspiring together and working out the best way to smear this forum. It's all coming together naturally, lazy journalists talking to the same few dishonest people and other lazy journalists just copy-pasting the narratives of other articles. I mean, if the BBC calls us "pro-suicide", it has to be correct, right? And you can kinda guess their political viewpoints on certain topics when you read their articles and some of those who have reported on us have a very clear opinion on this forum, as you can see here and here and that contributes to their bias. Why else would they be a member of a anti-Sanctioned Suicide Facebook group? I wasn't aware that journalists should have an opinion on subjects they research but it explains why there isn't even an attempt to write nuanced articles. Tony Smith also complimented these vigilantes who harassed members for their 'hard work', again proving that there is a clear opinion on our forum... We're the bad guys, period.

And look, it was no problem for me to debunk the NYT when they wrote an article about our forum and just recently I updated my response to them with more empirical data because that's how I approach these subjects unlike these journalists. I don't just make claims, I try to back them up with data whenever possible. I have also addressed the SN hysteria in another thread. I don't fear to challenge the media and confront myself with their claims, it gives me great joy to dunk on these clowns who imply in their articles that we contribute to a rising suicide rate when they're unable to provide evidence for such claims. And there is also data that indicates easy informational access to resources regarding ways to exercise your right to die (in plain terms how to commit suicide) does not increase the overall suicide rate but it rather influences how people exercise their right to die. And it makes sense, this kind of information only affects those who already made a decision to end their life. People think reading peaceful ways to exercise your right to die somehow makes you magically suicidal and having open access to methods therefore increases the amount of people who end their lives but again, that's not how it works. The media always portrayed the forum as the single most important contributing factor to a member's suicidality but people are already suicidal when they make an account - as I explained above. And it's a voluntary process. Nobody has ever forced someone to sign up on this forum and we don't advertise this forum either. Every single member has a feature on their profile to deactive their account and leave whenever they desire. There is nothing that keeps anyone here who doesn't feel comfortable with the subjects discussed in this forum. And again, we see why people make an account here, there are so many people who describe their lifelong struggles with suicidality, their suffering that's been a part of their entire life and failed attempts to recover as reasons why they want to make an account here. All of this contradicts the idea that people are trapped in some kind of pro-suicide prison, where people are sucked in and unable to leave. The entire premise of the reporting about this forum is based on the misconception that people who stumble upon this forum, healthy people with no struggles at all, magically commit suicide because the content of this forum is literally brainwashing them and the data I've included in my response to the NYT or the BBC does not confirm that idea. In fact it debunks the idea that this forum has any meaningful impact on nationwide suicide numbers, both in the US and in the UK. We don't change the metrics, even if we tried we couldn't. That's the reality.

It's a blatant misrepresentation of how suicide works in its entirety. People make an account here by choice. They participate in this forum voluntarily. And any decision they make for their own life has little to do with this forum. They're conflating causation and correlation. We don't make people think about committing suicide. People who think about commiting suicide make an account here. That's an important difference. But that would again go against the narrative.

It's also weird that the recovery section is invisible to everyone who thinks we're pro-suicide. Maybe I'm hallucinating but pro-suicide communities aren't exactly known for their recovery resources...

And none of those articles covering our forum with sensationalist headlines seem to remember that pro-choice communities have existed as long as the internet, as these articles from 2011 and 2015 prove. It's safe to say that the philosophy of this community will not disappear but re-emerge under a different name if this forum is taken down successfully and no amount of oppression and censorship will change that, as long as fundamental flaws in the treatment of suicidal people aren't addressed. And calling us pro-suicide at this point is merely an admission that you don't want to talk about the real problems.

Last but not least, what's "pro-suicide" seems to be highly subjective. The BBC covered the topic of assisted suicide a few years ago and they were even accused of a pro-suicide bias. It's almost as if people who disagree with the right to die will attack anything that's remotely pro-choice, hm? Utterly ironic though that the BBC was attacked with the exact same slander that we have to endure right now.

We're almost done with my thread but I also want to shed some light on some academic research to further back up my position. For example, this academic paper here, which dives into the ethical dilemma of pro-choice forums, looking at both pro-life and pro-choice viewpoints and at possible solutions for the ideological conflicts that's at play here between both parties.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/13634593211046843

And, would you look at that, very early in that paper it acknowledges that the media very often describes pro-choice forums as "pro-suicide", combined with calls to shut them down. And that's exactly what's happening here and that's exactly the reason why I'm writing this thread. So again, maybe journalists aren't really doing much research here as pointed out earlier and maybe they're just dismissing this forum as pro-suicide without knowing what they're talking about or what this forum stands for. I can only recommend to read this paper, it's very interesting and it also explores the ethical conflict in communities like ours when it comes to more controversial methods like train rails due to the fact that bystanders and third parties are involved in that method. Very interesting paper and obviously approaching the issue from an open mind - unlike those journalists.
Here are some snippets.​

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That paper cites a professor and researcher who is located in Canada, who has written some work about suicide, see here.

Suicidism: A new theoretical framework to conceptualize suicide from an anti-oppressive perspective | Disability Studies Quarterly

dsq-sds.org

And it's by far one of the best academic papers on the subject of suicide from an anti-oppressive perspective. Here is a snippet of their proposals. And it's honestly the best thing I've read in a long time. Like that's exactly what I've been talking about all these years. That's how real suicide prevention could look like without throwing people under the bus who sincerely want to die. But yeah... journalist who have no idea what goes through the mind of a suicidal person will never understand that. Here is a snippet.​

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So maybe some of those Canada-based journalists who have called us a pro-suicide forum want to reach out to actual experts on this issue before they just slander an entire community as pro-suicide? Like again, why do I have to read and link these academic papers? Why is it obvious that none of the journalists covering this forum did their research, not even basic research, looking into the ethical considerations around spaces like ours? Like, the academic discourse on suicide forums has been going for a while and there are answers that already tell you why this forume exists and why people use it. Why there is a demand. And the answers aren't as sinister as you'd like.

On top of that, there is also another academic paper that looked into this forum back in 2021 and they didn't find any suicide incitement. They said idea reinforcemenet might be present that's a very different claim than us "encouraging" suicide. They also call us a pro-choice suicide forum in that study, which I think is a more accurate depiction and it makes sense given researchers care about the truth and not about exciting headlines.

https://thesis.unipd.it/retrieve/3f2c4551-edf3-494f-9fc6-ff39821ac254/Sartori_Elisa.pdf

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So how is that for scientific evidence?
This entire thread is me going out of my way to address allegations which have been thrown around for years without ever being substantiated by anyone. None of those journalists have ever been able to back up up their questionable accusation that we're pro-suicide, that we encourage suicide or similiar claims. And that's concerning. As a journalist you have a duty to report the truth. It's not your job to make up your reader's minds but that's what you've been doing by making the decision for them if the forum you're reporting about is pro-choice or not. You have violated basic principles of good journalism and you clearly don't care to uphold any journalistic objectivity in any of your articles covering this forum. In other words: you're bad reporters.

And again, I didn't have to write this thread yet I did it anyway - because I wanted to. I don't have a problem responding to these journalists and taking them apart. I've done it for years. And it goes without saying that I don't take any journalist or reporter seriously who calls us pro-suicide and in my humble opinion, neither should you. They just expose their own ideological bias when they do that. Scientific articles to this day describe us as pro-choice, such as this one that just came out a few days ago. Odd, isn't it? And I also linked to an academic paper that doesn't use charged language, that take nuance into consideration and recognises there might be no incitement but reinforcement instead which blows the entire pro-suicide construct apart. That's my conclusion after reading it but you're free to make up your own mind. I spent quite a lot of time writing this thread and I tried to include research backing up my position, something that people who call us pro-suicide never do.

That was the first and last time that I've addressed these allegations. And I hope I explained why it's problematic to call us pro-suicide, why it's problematic that the journalists obviously don't care about truthful coverage, why it's problematic to ally with vigilantes and why it's problematic to neglect the academic discourse. Obviously, this thread isn't going to change the narrative because they don't care. Reporters covering this forum ususally ignore threads like this one where I directly respond to their claims, correcting misinformation. But I hope at least my community gets something out of it and I'm at least on the record now responding to these allegations. Thanks for reading.​

Sanction: give official permission or approval for (an action):

 

[Winterreise]

If SS can be justified/defended,it cant be done like this.. doing hide and seek, avoiding infiltrators, extreme lookout for potential doxxers.
We need to take it to them.

Im just a depressed fuck, not a child killer.
And I will tell it to their fucking face!

You gonne let them lie , joke , dox all the way to a ban? Like is being done to so many.
You gonne give them that leverage?

 

[Hollowillow]

This forum saved my life. Facebook, twitter, reddit, banning me because I don't have positive feelings... accusing me of being a violent dangerous person unworthy to be allowed to exist in their world... made me want to kill myself. having my feelings validated, my choices respected, and discussing them here saved my life.

 

[skdjm]

Don't quite understand.
What wrong of being pro-suicide?

 

[Winterreise]

Take it to them

 

[Leiot]

It's not pro-suicide but rather pro-talking about suicide. Guess we're supposed to sweep it under the rug.

 

[Nicholas22231]

Honestly the whole SS is "pro suicide" and a "death cult" is wild to me, it's like they just scroll a little bit and cant believe that people can discuss about suicide freely and openly, even without this forum people can just DM each other abt this stuff anyways, seen my fair share of small Discord servers talking about suicide methods and all that.

It seems that the mostly pro-life media is horrified to see this conversation out in the open instead of being confined in small GCs or DMs.

 

[cotton]

owning a cliff doesn't make you pro-suicidal... And making it open to the public doesn't mean you prescribe anything they do either...

 

[diy-event]

I am new to the site, what makes a site "pro-suicide?"

 

[Emeralds]

I am new to the site, what makes a site "pro-suicide?

Most people would say a site is pro suicide if it encourages or enables someone to commit suicide instead of encouraging them to seek help and try to recover. Most people outside of this forum believe this site is pro suicide because there is detailed method information .