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Comment by snovv_crash | Hacker News Reader

Given the outcomes of the Facebook mood experiments and how I've seen people put together very targeted ads, I'm wondering whether it's possible to induce someone (who's already under a lot of pressure) to commit suicide simply via a targeted information campaign. I'm speculating less on what happened here, and more on the general "yes that would be possible" situation.

How would one protect themselves from something like this? Avoid all 'algorithmically' generated data sources, AdBlock, VPN, don't log in anywhere?

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On Reddit there’s this thing about suicide prevention. Essentially, if someone thinks that you are suicidal, they can make reddit send you a very official looking “don’t do it” message.

I found that people are using it to abuse those they hate. I’ve received the message a few times when I had an argument with someone. Apparently it's a thing:

https://www.reddit.com/r/questions/comments/1bp1k9h/why_do_i...

There’s something profound about someone looking serious(official looking reddit account) giving you the idea of suicide. The first time I remember feeling very bad, because it’s written in a very official and caring way, it was like someone telling me that “I hate you so much that I spent lots of energy to meticulously tell you dat I want you to kill yourself” but also made me question myself.

Wow, that's the first time I'm hearing about that tactic. And it's dawning on me how egregious that is because it could be inoculating you against the very messages meant to dissuade you. Though I'm unsure how effective those messages were to begin with.

Yeah, it's making you look back at yourself. Like when someone tells you that you look tired or sick or something like that, and you are actually not but you still need to check it up because they might have a point. Then more often than not you start feeling that way. It's suggestive.

Might be worth investing some energy leveling up skills of not lettting random internet jerks have that much power over thy emotions

You build it over time but sometimes they invent brilliant attacks vectors.

The message is not necessarily to dissuade you, but to protect Reddit.

Oh, I got a lot of those for hate. The good news is it was easy to report them and I got most people who sent them banned. It's highly against reddit's TOS and something they enforce.

I'm going to have to go with Tyler The Creator's advice here: "Just Walk Away From The Screen"

Try it now. I'm sure you'll be back within 24h.

YouTube is the only algorithmic thing I use and I'm not getting depression content so not sure what the point is. I do constantly click not interested to get the algorithm to recommend what I actually want to though. If I was getting bad content I'd think it'd be pretty easy to stop watching YouTube and watch more Netflix or something.

Completely removing all screens would be quite hard though yes in the modern world. Tbh idk how people lived before TVs.

there was a video of a guy who pranked his housemate - http://mysocialsherpa.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-...

I don't know how much this is embellished, but I'd say it's not too hard.

for defence, as others have said, walk away from the phone. spend time with friends.

I personally swear out loud followed by the name of the company whenever I see a YouTube advert, I hope it helps me avoid making the choices they want me to.

In theory, but not without including a larger target group as your audience. Back in the day an audience on Facebook needed a size of at least 20, but I'm unsure what the limit is now.

Your ads would still need to be reviewed and would likely not pass the filters if they straight up encourage self harm.

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