Facebook is Using Artificial Intelligence to Help Predict Users that Could be Suicidal

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Suicide is a sensitive subject and when videos emerged on Facebook of some people taking their lives on Facebook Live, it was pretty jarring for viewers.

Facebook has seen the number of its users double that see support content for suicide prevention ever since the social networking giant switched on a detection system.

It was roughly a year ago that the company added a technology to its platform that automatically flags posts with expressions of suicidal thoughts. The company’s human employees then analyze the posts.

Facebook wrote in a blog post last November, “Over the last month, we’ve worked with first responders on over 100 wellness checks based on reports we received via our proactive detection efforts.”

The enhanced program now flags 20 times more cases of suicidal thoughts than before.

A company software engineer on its compassion team, Dan Muriello, commented, “We feel like it’s very important to get people help as quickly as we possibly can and to get as many people help as we can.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Facebook, Inc. Common Stock (NASDAQ: FB) and have not been compensated for this article.