Facebook & The Trevor Project Work Together To Prevent LGBTQ Suicides
Facebook is a platform that constantly makes an effort to enhance user experience and overall trying to make social media a safer and friendlier environment. This is why Facebook is now working together with The Trevor Project, an organization dedicated to suicide prevention among the LGBTQ youth.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and Facebook took this opportunity to create a way for users to access mental health help easily. On Tuesday, Facebook announced that mental health resources from The Trevor Project would be made accessible on the social media platform through direct messages. The project is still expected to roll out in the coming months but it's worth noting that last year, Facebook already launched tools and features for users to access mental health support groups and functions with abilities to report concerning posts regarding suicide.
The Trevor Project stated on their website that the suicide attempt rate is "four times greater for LGBT youth and two times greater for questioning youth than that of straight youth." Facebook's plan to roll out a supportive chat bot will hopefully help take care of this problem. Though The Trevor Project is focused on LGBT youth, a Transgender Survey in 2015 found that 40% of transgender adults have attempted or thought about suicide during their lives. This means that everyone from all ages will benefit from Facebook's upcoming project.
Aside from The Trevor Project, the Facebook messenger crisis support bot will also extend awareness to other mental health areas with the help from organizations like Crisis Text Line, the National Eating Disorder Association, Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Facebook has been under scrutiny for the widespread live streamed suicide videos on the site, especially after the world witnessed a Cleveland man live-streaming the murder of a 74-year-old man. After the backlash, founder Mark Zuckerberg declared that more intervention should be done to guarantee the safety of users and prevent any similar incident from happening again.
