Texting Suicide Case

[CJD]

(07-10-2019, 08:59 AM)Au165 Wrote: How do you protect the mentally ill? I think in most cases your words without actions should hold very little in terms of liability, however I think there are exceptions; one of those being towards the mentally ill. This case wasn't a passing comment it was a bombardment of encouragement to commit suicide. To me it would be no different than if she told a 4 year old to jump off a cliff, the person you are giving these instructions to is not mentally capable of processing this "advice" and handling it correctly. 

The issue to me here is to say words don't have power against certain classes is to set a precedent that could become even more dangerous in the world of social media. Again, one off comments I think are much different then what we saw in this case and I think carving out a very specific way for words to kill is important for the future of online interactions, especially with minors.

It's tough to say. Abusing someone's naivete or mental illness is really hard to prosecute. There are a variety of examples often with the end goal being taking people's money and it's not always black and white in terms of legal guilt of the offending party (see: seed faith scammers).

I think the other problem is this case is so ***** bizarre. Why would a person WANT their friend to kill themselves? It doesn't make any sense. It actually defies human logic in a way that I personally find difficult to even process.

The only conclusion I can even come to is that she is also mentally ill. It's also difficult to hold a child responsible for things like this because children are just...so stupid.