Dissecting the SaSu wikipedia article together

[noname223]

"Sanctioned Suicide (SS) is an internet forum known for its open discussion and encouragement of suicide and suicide methods. The forum was founded on March 18, 2018, by Diego Joaquín Galante and Lamarcus Small, who go by the online pseudonyms Serge and Marquis. Galante and Small created the website after the subreddit r/SanctionedSuicide was banned by Reddit; both the website and the subreddit have been described as the successors to the Usenet newsgroup alt.suicide.holiday. As of October 2023, the forum has over 40,000 members and was reported to receive nearly 10 million page views in September 2023. Although the forum frames itself as a "pro-choice" suicide forum, it has been widely described as "pro-suicide".

Sanctioned Suicide has generated widespread scrutiny from news outlets and government officials for the encouragement of suicide by members on the site, as well as the site's promotion of the use of sodium nitrite as a method of suicide, a previously obscure method. One New York Times report found 45 adults and children who died in connection to the site, and a later report found dozens more. BBC News has identified 50 people who died in connection to the site in the United Kingdom. Access to the forum has been restricted in Italy, Germany and the UK."

So first of all the article gets a lot of updates. The last time it was edited was the 7th January. But not all information are up-to-date.
10 million page views per month is sort of based the people know what is good. Especially my threads.
Jokes aside. Professionals and mental health experts should genuinely ask themselves why this forum is so so so much more popular than all other pro-life suicide forums combined. Or these councelling websites or hotlines. I read this forum has multiple times more views than the ten biggest official help lines combined. Maybe you should question your approach if the people don't feel taken serious and avoid your "help". Personally I need MONEY, CASH, SUBSTANTIAL HELP because I am a mess. And no fucking warm words. Get out of here if this what you offer to me.

They are sort of right that this forum is described as pro-suicide. Because it is the media narrative. And they simply mirror it without reflection. Though it is no real evaluation whether it actually is pro-suicide.

Personally I have barely seen encouragement of suicide on here and when I saw it (a few times) I always reported it immediately. But it probably depends on the defintion. And most people on here don't agree with their view.

By the way Germany did not do a good job in restricting it when I can still access this forum (theoretically) without VPN and the wikipedia article of this forum is equivalent to a huge marketing campaign for new members. It is ranked second highest in the popular search engines with the full uncensored name. There is only a link missing.

"In an interview with the Poynter Institute, Twohey stated that the decision to name the website and the suicide methods promoted by the site were "two of the biggest ethical issues that we had ever dealt with". Following discussions with medical experts, law enforcement, and families, The New York Times team chose to name the website and the preservative once in the report, so as not to potentially raise the website's profile."

To be honest how fucking stupid is this consideration. Well we only have mentioned it "once in the report". Once is enough to be found you morons. There are so many surveys on here that many members only know this forum by media articles. "So as not to potentially raise the website's profile" this is kindergarten logic. You are the fucking New York Times what have you expected to happen? You have million of readers...
The nature of search engines should be easily understood by a team of "experts". But it is probably the same team of experts that demonizes this forum. So what else should we expect. Maybe I sound cynical. But you can't tell me a team of "experts" doesn't get how the internet works. I am lost for words.

On the following I am ambivalent. I think there were rumors in the forum that suspected they only mentioned the site's name so that the story gets more attention. I am not sure whether that might be the truth. But the argument they present in this article simply does not make sense to me. Scholars also highly criticized the NYT for the way they dealt with this topic.

"Informal requests from the Australian eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant to Google and Microsoft Bing to delist the website from search results were declined, citing the need to balance safety with the open access of lawful information."

- Take that it is "lawful information".

"In March 2020, the site was blocked from online search results in Germany" Not really it can be found very easily.

"Bing responded by lowering the ranking of the site in its search results, however both Google and Bing declined requests to remove the site from search results absent a legal requirement" To be honest the wikipedia article totally undermines this strategy because the article is ranked very very high even in the google search engine.

"In addition, audio streaming service Spotify disabled the site's Spotify social login, which the company states was added by a third party developer without their knowledge." I was very surprised that this actually was possible. Still can't wrap my head around."

Last but not least my favorite part:
"April Foreman, a psychologist on the executive board of the American Association of Suicidology, argued that rather than block the site, better systems of support for people with suicidal ideation need to be created." Based.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'd argue that we support people in either the suicide or recovery direction ONCE THEY HAVE VOICED THEIR OWN CHOICE! And seem determined it is the right choice for them. So- I'd define that as being pro-choice. We respect an individual's choice. Full stop. I'd add to that- that most members err on the side of caution too. They'll only very loosely support a final decision. 'I hope you find peace' which is I imagine the most common phrase on goodbye threads isn't necessarily- 'I hope you succeed.' It could just as well mean- I hope you make peace with your final decision to live or die.

We're not willing one another to die! We're willing one another to find an easier, more peaceful solution. It's just that we know that that isn't always possible if a person can't change their circumstances to a standard that is good enough for them.

We're not going to tell someone who isn't sure to go jump off something! You want that shit? Look on regular social media! I expect even in critical videos of this place- eg. the Tantacrul video- you'll get some of those well tempered, rational normies telling us all to get on with offing ourselves! Far more incitement goes on in regular social media I'd argue.

You want the CAUSE of some people's ideation? Go look at all the bullying that goes on on those sites! But no- that's too difficult to tackle. Easier to just say people who come here are all vulnerable, mentally ill and fall prey to- I don't know what. Some death cult matermind secretly getting off on all the misery! This place is a SYMPTOM of this f*cked up world! You really want to help pro-lifers? Look at WHY people come here!

 

[noname223]

I'd argue that we support people in either the suicide or recovery direction ONCE THEY HAVE VOICED THEIR OWN CHOICE! And seem determined it is the right choice for them. So- I'd define that as being pro-choice. We respect an individual's choice. Full stop. I'd add to that- that most members err on the side of caution too. They'll only very loosely support a final decision. 'I hope you find peace' which is I imagine the most common phrase on goodbye threads isn't necessarily- 'I hope you succeed.' It could just as well mean- I hope you make peace with your final decision to live or die.

We're not willing one another to die! We're willing one another to find an easier, more peaceful solution. It's just that we know that that isn't always possible if a person can't change their circumstances to a standard that is good enough for them.

We're not going to tell someone who isn't sure to go jump off something! You want that shit? Look on regular social media! I expect even in critical videos of this place- eg. the Tantacrul video- you'll get some of those well tempered, rational normies telling us all to get on with offing ourselves! Far more incitement goes on in regular social media I'd argue.

You want the CAUSE of some people's ideation? Go look at all the bullying that goes on on those sites! But no- that's too difficult to tackle. Easier to just say people who come here are all vulnerable, mentally ill and fall prey to- I don't know what. Some death cult matermind secretly getting off on all the misery! This place is a SYMPTOM of this f*cked up world! You really want to help pro-lifers? Look at WHY people come here!

Thank you as always for your contribution Forever Sleep.
I am sort of so anxious about the scrutiny of the websites that I try to talk about suicide in certain instances. But I am probably not doing a good job in that. When I am too depressed a good old vent just helps me to survive though.

I think especially on the last point I could not agree more. Social media probably has a pretty high death toll. And barely anyone talks about that. There are way more evil places than this forum but everyone ignores that fact.

 

[h.s.p.]

The first time I ever read about SN was in that NYT article. They wrote about a poor Texas kid who used said substance to achieve a quick, peaceful death.
I honestly don't even remember SS being mentioned in the article, maybe I read about this community elsewhere, but guess what?
I was desperate and suicidal and had just been told about a substance to achieve a quick, peaceful death, so I decided to investigate.
Now you tell me, who's to blame for my eventual death? NYT or SS?
I'm being sarcastic of course.

 

[Proteus]

People sees anything that minimally accepts suicide and it's automatically "everyone should kill themselfs". Just because we think people should choose, we aren't pushing them to it. The claim we shun recovery is demonstrably wrong, there is a fat recovery tab, and preaching death there will get you warned.

Unless you explain how can you be pro-suicide while respecting other's choice to live (and we do), this discussion won't progress.