That is crazy what happened. I think it is great what you and Rick did, but we should not be held accountable for someone else's children. One option would be to offer the panic button and just bill the parents for any costs that arise from someone using it. That would probably never happen, but it would make parents pay more attention to their kids and how they act online.
A friend of mine routinely checks myspace for his kids profiles, once found he gets them removed. He is extreme about it because he is paranoid, but he could easily just monitor the content with the same fashion. In the end, I think that if you go above and beyond to possibly help someone, that is great. But you can't save everyone, and if you happen not to help someone, don't lose any sleep over it; it would be the parents fault. -Lan www.LanBui.com -------------------- On Dec 18, 2006, at 6:23 PM, Zadi wrote: Hi All, Today I came across a teen who had written a suicide note on MySpace: <http://flickr.com/photos/karmagrrrl/326204445/? #comment72157594427411558> At first, I thought it was a joke - just a teen looking for attention. But when I clicked on his profile and read some of his blog posts, I began to realize that it may be real after all. It turned out it was real. And he was overdosing on pills. Rick Rey, a fellow videoblogger, called the school and the authorities handled it from there. Just a few moments ago I received an email from one of his friends saying the kid was alive and holding on in the hospital. My question is... What should the protocol be in instances like these? You see a suicide note on a social network site and you feel completely helpless. Luckily, Rick scanned the page enough to notice the school info, but what if there had been none? I feel like there should be a little box on all these social networks that say "in case of fire, break glass." A red button of sorts. But is that getting into a whole gray area? How does one ensure that young people are physically safe? Can the buddy system/top eight be more useful when things like this happen? Is there an alarm? Just thinking out loud. Thoughts? Zadi http://jetsetshow.com http://zadidiaz.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
