Teen Kills Self on Justin.tv (Article published on www.wired.com)

By David KravetsNovember 20, 2008 | 8:29:37 PM 

Justin.tv viewers comment as Florida authorities recover the body of

 a teen who committed suicide live on the  internet.
 

Police in Pembroke Pines, Florida, are investigating the apparent suicide of a 19-year-old whose death was seen on a live Justin.tv feed, a Broward County dispatcher said.

According to published reports, the teen's death, broadcast Tuesday evening, 

was from an overdose. Video watchers called the authorities, who broke into his residence.

About 185 people were viewing the feed on the San Francisco-based live-streaming service. But the teen apparently announced his pending suicide on a bodybuilding chat forum, left a suicide note, and viewers were said to have egged him on.

Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel said in an e-mail: "We regret that this has occurred and respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time. We have policies in place to discourage the distribution of distressing content, and our community monitors the site accordingly. This content was flagged by our community, reviewed, and removed according to our terms of service."

Public suicides are common. People jump off buildings and bridges.

Suicides now have veered to another public arena: the internet. A British man suffered the same fate two years ago after being goaded to hang himself while in a webcam chatroom. And the net is also a known area to organize suicide pacts.

Yet internet suicides are different from the old-fashioned public ones. It's hard to decipher what's real on the internet. It's unknown what viewers were thinking when they saw a police officer prodding this Florida teen to see if he was alive. Online viewers' chat comments at that moment ranged from OMG to LOL.

The comments on this blog, however, tell another story. Most who commented fell in the line with our first commentator, who wrote: "hahaha hahahahha hahahahahah ahhaha." Somebody else wrote: "Instant Darwinism..." and the follow up comment was: "fucking a nicely put." Others called the teen a "coward," "faggot" and a "dick."

Still, this rare anomaly of a comment on our Threat Level blog seemed to sum up an online teen-ager's suicide:

if this was your child or your brother I'd doubt you'd find this funny at all. Killing yourself leaves a path of destruction behind for you loved ones to cleanup. The internet adds a layer of anonymity that makes people behave irrationally and in most public forums seems to bring out the worst in us because of it. Youtube comments is an example of just how bad we treat each other when you don't have a real identity attached and therefore no real consequences (in most cases)

Moving on.

Justin.tv is an open network of thousands of live streaming channels. The network, named after Justin Kan, its first star, has been the target of pranksters and hackers.

Soon after Justin.tv launched, viewers played a prank on Kan, calling the cops from his cellphone to report a stabbing. With guns drawn, the authorities broke into Kan's apartment to the delight of viewers.