MEDIA

Watching Suicide Live, Detached From Reality

By Travis Bland

IS TECHNOLOGY MAKING US LESS HUMAN?

By now everybody has heard the story of Abraham Biggs Jr., the 19 year-old college student who broadcast his suicide over the internet.

The South Florida teen, who was affected with bi-polar disorder, announced that he was going to kill himself on a forum at bodybuilders.com. Biggs then posted a link from the forum to Justin.tv, where users can broadcast live from their webcams. Reportedly, some users contacted moderators at the body building site, who traced Biggs’ location and alerted police. But by the time police got to the scene about 3 p.m., Biggs was already dead. He had started blogging about 12 hours earlier.

While Biggs was live-streaming his own suicide, other users posted comments ranging from shocked exclamations to off-colored “gallows humor.” Justin.tv quickly pulled down the video after the incident.

Biggs father, Abraham Sr., told ABC News that he was appalled that people would watch his son kill himself. "I think it is wrong to have this happen for hours without any action being taken from the people in charge,’’ the senior Biggs said. “Where were they all the time?"

In a statement to the media, Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel, said, "We regret that this has occurred and want to respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time."

Biggs is not the first person to kill himself online (an act eerily dubbed ‘cyber-suicide’ by one Australian newspaper), but his real-time suicide is raising many questions regarding internet safety and the lines between the freedom and regulation of expression.

The internet produces pseudo-stardom in an instant. It's becoming epidemic to see people prostituting their privacy in exchange for attention that humans seem to crave so deeply.

There's something inhumane about the web's voyeurism, as well as our boundless quest for profit. I abhor the lack of action on the part of Justin.tv, but as an advocate of free speech, I also can’t defend tight control over web broadcasting.

When this grieving family inevitably files a lawsuit, the civil courts will prove to be regulation enough.

Travis Bland is a freelance reporter and literary delinquent living on California's Central Coast. He currently resides in a tin shack, sustaining himself on a healthy diet of sourdough bread crust, Wild Turkey, and Jack Cafferty blog posts. You can reach him at trbland@gmail.com.