From The New York Times: Opinion | I Used Google Ads for Social Engineering. It Worked.
Ad campaigns that manipulate searchers’ behavior are frighteningly easy for anyone to run.
[...]Kevin Hines had one thought as he plummeted toward the Pacific Ocean: I can change anything in my life except the fact that I just jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge.
“One sentence could have stopped me,” Kevin wrote. “Had any one of the hundreds of passers-by engaged with me, it would … potentially have showed me that I had the ability to choose life.”
No person stopped Kevin from trying to kill himself. Could a Google ad have?
[...]Could Kevin have been redirected? Could he have been persuaded — by a few lines of ad copy and a persuasive landing page — not to jump? I wondered if I could redirect the next Kevin Hines. The goal of my first redirect campaign was to sway the ideology of suicidal people.
The problem my campaign addressed: Suicidal people are underserved on Google. In 2010, Google started making the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline the top result of certain searches relating to suicide. It also forced autocomplete not to finish such searches.
The weakness of Google’s initiative is that not enough variations of searches trigger the hotline. A search for “I am suicidal” will result in the hotline. But a search for “I’m going to end it” won’t always. “I intend to die” won’t ever. A lot of “higher-funnel” searches don’t trigger the hotline.
I hoped my redirect campaign would fill the gap in Google’s suicide algorithm. I would measure my campaign’s success by how many suicidal searchers clicked my ad and then called the number on my website, which forwarded to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
Nine days after my campaign began, the ads were accepted by Google. My ad was the first result across the United States when someone Googled with suicidal intent. I showed unique ads to suicidal people who were physically located around the Golden Gate Bridge.
Nearly one in three searchers who clicked my ad dialed the hotline — a conversion rate of 28 percent. The average Google Ads conversion rate is 4 percent.
The campaign’s 28 percent conversion rate was met in the first week. Not counting people who thought I was associated with lifeline or who did not read the ad or language on my website, that leaves a rate suggesting there’s a need in this ad space that is not being met.
[...]Mr. Berlinquette is a Google certified partner, and the founder of the search engine marketing consulting firm Berlin SEM.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 11 2019, @08:56AM (5 children)
Or just murder passing motorists for their cash. Either way, you'll do far less damage to society than if you successfully pursued a career in advertising.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday July 11 2019, @01:00PM (4 children)
Did you read TFA? Did you get to the end? Well, here's the conclusion:
Yes, the author is involved in advertising. He is also writing an opinion piece about the dangers of advertising, how we need better abilities to see the differences between ads and search results ("to use Google defensively"), and how advertising can exploit us when tied into search engines. As a hook, he used a story about an arguably "good" use of these tools, but one that surprised him in how (disturbingly) effective it seemed to be.
So, this is a guy who tried to prevent suicides (and school shootings, if you read TFA), and then wrote an opinion piece in a prominent newspaper arguing that advertising in search engines is ripe for abuse. Is this really just "self-serving shite"?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:01PM (3 children)
Yes. Regular people don't get their sappy opinion pieces into the NYT. I would be interested to find out if this guy was Jewish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:48PM (2 children)
Well we found out what kind of person you are. Trash.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:05PM (1 child)
Not as trashy as being a money making middleman on other's misfortunes.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday July 11 2019, @10:42PM
Correct. You're trashier than that.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday July 11 2019, @09:24AM (1 child)
If a neighboring Church's suicide prevention center were to ever list your number on their website and keep telling you they'll get right on it for weeks on end while suggesting you should change your number, change your ringback tone into this [youtube.com] and tell them to try calling the number.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @10:06AM
Wtf? List who's number where?
(Score: 4, Funny) by inertnet on Thursday July 11 2019, @11:00AM
More power to you. But every Google search will now probably start showing that suicide hotline. Depressing. Also "I'm Feeling Lucky" seems out of place now.
(Score: 2) by SparkyGSX on Thursday July 11 2019, @11:49AM
Soylentnews' fortune is scarily relevant; I got:
"Do not seek death; death will find you. But seek the road which makes death a fulfillment. -- Dag Hammarskjold"
If you do what you did, you'll get what you got
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @01:05PM (1 child)
Gurgle, fartbook, and twatter. Three sites you shouldn't go to.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday July 11 2019, @10:51PM
Well, you're just a prude then. Gurgle is the premier hook up site for people addicted to messy deep-throat blowjobs. Fartbook is the best hang out place for compulsive crop dusters, where we share stories about destroying old ladies in aisle 3, and the best diets for those trying to weaponize their craft.
However, those people at twatter are just plain freaks. I agree. Stay away from them.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @01:10PM (11 children)
I'm not convinced that suicide must be prevented at all costs. It is the ultimate free exercise of self determination. No force in the universe can reverse or punish a successful suicide. Do humans not have the right to self determination? Be that as it may, I would be devastated if someone in my life took theirs but do my wants and needs trump their free will?
That brings me to a second point. Does the mere proposal of suicide indicate mental problems that preclude making that choice as a sound decision?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:45PM (6 children)
Copypasta from last suicide thread:
Right... let's pretend that one day your best friend learns that he had been fired in disgrace from his job, and his bank account had been emptied by thieves, and his wife is leaving and taking the dog with her because she has been fucking the dog, and all his family suddenly hates him as a penniless dog-cucked loser. And so your friend takes the decision to end his own life. "Oh well", you say, "it's your choice. Bye, buddy."
Except... It turns out none of that is true! At the last moment you learn that he still has his job and his money and his wife and his family and his dog! In some bizarre sitcom-esque twist of events, he had been given completely erroneous information! Everything is actually OK! Surely in this case, you would intervene! "Wait! Stop! None of it is true! It's all OK, you don't have to do it!"
I suspect your friend would be very grateful that you stopped him from doing something both unnecessary and irrevocable.
Well, that's kind of how mental illness works. People try to kill themselves because they believe that nobody loves them and nobody cares and it doesn't matter to anyone whether they live or die and they themselves don't care enough to bother carry on living anyway. They believe it not because it's true, but because their brain chemistry is all fucked up. It's the same situation.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:56PM
With a pink slip and the divorce papers on the table, you would have to be fucking delusional if you thought it wasn't real.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:48PM (1 child)
That's kind of my point though. Does just the contemplation of suicide indicate mental illness? Are you clinically crazy if you want to kill yourself?
I've been around BPD and bipolar people and I am grateful neither I nor my kids have any of those issues. I've personally known four people over the years who seriously contemplated suicide at some point in their lives and I can honestly say I thought every one of them was at least a little crazy before hand. The first is being treated and "normal" but still eccentric. The next is still crazy but alive. The third one attempted suicide but is now on meds and living a "normal" life. The last one blew his brains out in front of some friends and co-workers who came to his home to do a welfare check on him.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday July 12 2019, @04:35PM
Here's the problem. Having a mental illness is a medical diagnosis. It therefore requires one to have been examined and diagnosed with such. Competent professionals do not issue a mental diagnosis without having an interview with the individual. ('duty to warn' notwithstanding but that's why those ethical guides were created).
"Crazy" is not a word a professional will recognize and it only helps to further stigmatize people it is applied to.
A professional might ask: Does a person have to have impaired judgment and insight in order to contemplate suicide? Does someone considering suicide automatically have an impairment or deficit to functional living which needs to be addressed? And as I hinted earlier above, the answer may not be necessarily yes in all cases. On the other hand, I think your experience is not totally uncommon that most people who have attempted suicide have demonstrated impaired judgment with the attempt and may not be internally processing the world correctly for functioning within it either emotionally, cognitively, or behaviorally.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by J_Darnley on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:51PM
Do I have any reason to believe he isn't a "penniless dog-cucked loser"? Sounds like a good reason to me. I'd probably blow my brains out in that situation had I the freedom and right to gun ownership.
Granted I might not be the best person to answer since I don't have any (close) friends so I don't have anyone to picture my life without.
(Score: 2) by black6host on Friday July 12 2019, @12:35AM
More like someone played his life backwards like the country music record, I'd say, lol.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @05:23AM
Thanks for the sig ;)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Thursday July 11 2019, @11:12PM (1 child)
I've thought about ending my own life, and doing so as a sound decision. Severe medical issues cause you to look at suicide a litttttle bit differently. I strongly believe I have a right to self determination as well. I don't know about ultimate expression of self determination. It's certainly the last one.
That being said, most suicides are due to mental illness, or the profound perception that you have no other choice. I'm only alive today because intellectually I did determine that I still had a choice, and I could fight. It was my own self determination that saved me in a way, and those truly at risk for it have kinda lost that. Life has been reduced down to a single path, and you see no other way out.
As for "no other force .. can reverse of punish....", all I can say is that is your opinion. None of us knows what lies in the afterlife, nor we can claim true knowledge of reversal or punishment. I'm also quite spiritual, so the punishment did factor into my decision making as well. Feelings about suicide, its morality, its worth, are also strongly cultural.
Just because somebody says they want to commit suicide doesn't preclude them being in sound mind. However, I would say that is perhaps rare. It certainly justifies taking a moment to talk and help the person, because so much of time there is an alternative to suicide in some form of assistance. We should be against it by default, at nearly all costs. Our compassion should lead us to create "infrastructure" for a safety net to help people.
Those rare moments where it may make some sense, are exceptional in nature, and predominately medical. Only then can we say the costs may be too great. The person about to jump off a bridge almost never meets those conditions, and in reality has a choice. It's important that we make access to that choice, and to help guide them. The scary thing about life is that we can easily find ourselves on the other side of the argument.
For anyone truly thinking about it, all I can tell you is that there is another choice. I promise. Pick up the phone and call the National Hotline. Suicide Prevention Life Line [suicidepreventionlifeline.org].
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Friday July 12 2019, @12:44AM
Thanks for sharing your story and thoughts and a prevention link. Another resource is a book called "Out of the Nightmare: Recovery From Depression And Suicidal Pain", by David L. Conroy, discussed on the Metanoia website: https://www.metanoia.org/suicide/ [metanoia.org]
Some key ideas from the book are summarized on that site: "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain. That's all it's about. You are not a bad person, or crazy, or weak, or flawed, because you feel suicidal. It doesn't even mean that you really want to die - it only means that you have more pain than you can cope with right now. If I start piling weights on your shoulders, you will eventually collapse if I add enough weights... no matter how much you want to remain standing. Willpower has nothing to do with it. Of course you would cheer yourself up, if you could. Don't accept it if someone tells you, "That's not enough to be suicidal about." There are many kinds of pain that may lead to suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable may differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else, may not be bearable to you. The point at which the pain becomes unbearable depends on what kinds of coping resources you have. Individuals vary greatly in their capacity to withstand pain. When pain exceeds pain-coping resources, suicidal feelings are the result. Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources. You can survive suicidal feelings if you do either of two things: (1) find a way to reduce your pain, or (2) find a way to increase your coping resources. Both are possible."
As I've written elsewhere ( https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations-Reading-List [github.com] ), one of the fundamental challenges in an organization or society is to destigmatize asking for help to avoid the classic dilemma those with suicidal thoughts face when they expect asking for help will only increase their pain from whatever reactions occur -- such as job loss or being ejected from a university community. By reconceptualizing suicide as an involuntary action that occurs when total pain exceeds resources for coping with pain, David Conroy provides a morally neutral way for organizations and society to think about suicide prevention in a productive way.
Rather than focus mainly on intervening in a crisis, organizations can rethink their operations to reduce participant pain and to increase coping resources. This helps everyone in the organization, not just those who have reached a threshold where pain is very close to coping resources. Early intervention is much cheaper and more successful than waiting for a crisis. This model shows how organizations can approach suicide intervention in hundreds of way. One of those ways is also making people aware of success stories where individuals overcame depression and related suicidal thoughts.
Aggregate pain includes physical pain, emotional pain, and social pain. Reducing pain in any area by even a small amount may bring a person below a threshold for suicide. Similarly there are many types of coping resources from interacting with a friend, to going to a funny movie, to receiving adequate health care, to interacting with a pet. There are also some short-term coping strategies like denial or drinking which may have long-term negative consequences that become new sources of pain when done to excess.
As pointed out in that book, there are many mentally ill people who are not suicidal -- but being mentally ill often contributes pain to a life and so becomes a risk factor increasing aggregate pain.
Books like "The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit" and "Lost Connections: Why You’re Depressed and How to Find Hope" and similar (BlueZones, the Depression Cure, etc.) suggest that, while many people can do a lot to make their individual surroundings healthier (especially with some support from other people), ultimately making 21st-century Western society less painful and less alienating for everyone will involve some broader social choices beyond the level of the individual... In that sense, suicide, depression, and addiction are more like symptoms reflecting deeper social issues than being illnesses of specific individuals (even as right now many individuals may need to try to handle such challenges on their own as best they can within a dysfunctional environment).
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @11:34PM
Is it truly "my will" if I have a chemical imbalance in my brain.
I don't know.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday July 12 2019, @03:30PM
Depends on how you mean suicide. If a person has a terminal illness and is experiencing constant pain to a degree that there is no fulfillment in life anymore and as far as anyone can predict the pain will continue until the person's last breath without ceasing.... Is such a person wanting to end his or her life insane, or is that a rational decision? Is that suicide? On the other hand, in many other cases there are provable psychological drivers such as depression or schizophrenia at work. Does the person who hears a voice telling them to end it all have the ability to refuse consent for treatment? There absolutely are people who do not have rational cause who attempt suicide.
And to add another interesting fact to the conversation, most adolescents who attempt suicide (60%) are not diagnosed with any mental illness at the time of their decision.
To the article proper, there are many people who exhibit behaviors which in retrospect seemed rather obvious, such as being incredibly worked up and then suddenly and calmly at peace because they're "figured it out", or they give away possessions with great personal meaning to friends and relatives systematically and think they are clearly signalling their intentions. In other words, many do it without saying anything overt and yet people feel guilty afterwards because there were behaviors they felt they should have recognized (behaviors that are in fact increased with increased suicidiality). There will be cases the machines will not be able to catch, but a human being who knows the person might.
More food for thought [medium.com], including the oft-repeated meme (which I think is correct but can't cite) that survivors of jumping the Golden Gate bridge all change their minds after they jumped.
Finally, consider that most people who are intercepted and stopped end up not committing suicide later. People are only held for as long as it can be proven that they intend to harm themselves and the vast majority will be free to try again. A sadly distressing number do try again, but the fact that there are interventions which work in a majority of cases. (1 in 25 try again and succeed within 5 years according to the NY Times [nytimes.com], which means 24 of 25 or 96% do not try again in 5 years.) People change their minds and then survive again. I'd say interfering is worth it.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:18PM (1 child)
is that HE may be getting clicks, but the user profile resulting from those clicks are also being sold to insurance adjusters, booze, cigarette and drug manufacturers etc. etc. etc.
It is a vicious circle. Many of the people who contact him wouldn't have been suicidal in the first place if it wasn't for the ad-tracking system that he is flogging. There will always be more bad actors in ad-tracking than good ones.
It _is_ battery. Peoples minds are being altered in fashions that they would not consent to if they were educated enough to understand the effects. Essentially advertising drives people to be insecure by design. Advertisements create a need for resolution provided by consumer product. Typically the product doesn't actually resolve the need, leaving the victem of the advertising feeling unfulfilled and insecure even after the purchase.
In psychology this is called gaslighting. In divorce court it is called psychological battery. I hope eventually one of the battered kids who take it out on their peers would figure it out, and pay a visit to an advertising firm instead. Hell, if I was on the jury I'd bake them a fucking cake.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @02:53PM
Note he's taking calls on a number he provides and forwarding them to the real hotline. The article sounds like a money making scheme.
In our current "social" world, once Google puts the suicide tag on your profile, how soon for your life insurance to get cancelled? Your wife can't take the risk to herself or the kids, so she'll cash out in a divorce. What's left for you to do but really kill yourself?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:18PM (6 children)
Are you really going to make me read TFA to find out if Kevin is fictional or lived through his jump?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday July 11 2019, @03:44PM (5 children)
Kevin wrote about it after he jumped, so I presume he survived. Either that, or we have possible evidence of Quantum Teleportation.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:23PM
Or Kevin is just one of many personalities residing in that bag of flesg. Or Kevin is a narrator of a mindstate of a particularily depressed hpuse cat, who became suicidal after using the Internet. Or Kevin is just a Jew, making shit up as jews do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 11 2019, @04:37PM (3 children)
presume -- so don't know? This feels so click-baity to me. Either Kevin jumped and survived (which should be stated in TFS) or it is a fictional account (which should be stated in TFS). I refuse to click on click bait, but that doesn't mean it doesn't bug me, and I want Soylent to not stoop to that sort of thing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rupert Pupnick on Thursday July 11 2019, @05:38PM (1 child)
Point taken, but I’ll save you the trouble of clicking. In a reassuring display of causality, Kevin wrote the article about jumping after he himself jumped. Admit it, though, you’d like to find out how he survived. You won’t.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @08:13PM
It seems pretty obvious how someone would survive jumping off a bridge... Like most failed suicide attempts, he managed to not do enough damage to kill himself, and was rescued in time (apparently someone who saw him jump called emergency services and he was picked up by the coast guard).
According to wikipedia [wikipedia.org], "About 5% of the jumpers survive the initial impact but generally drown or die of hypothermia in the cold water. ... The fatality rate of jumping is roughly 98%. As of July 2013, only 34 people are known to have survived the jump. Those who do survive strike the water feet-first and at a slight angle, although individuals may still sustain broken bones or internal injuries."
Apparently Kevin wrote a book about it.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 11 2019, @06:13PM
The whole damn article is advertising copy for this guy's enterprise. There are yet other firms that arrange for fake testimonials and advertising "press releases" to get time on television and column inches in newspapers. Amongst other places, in the "Opinion" section of the New York Times. And I don't want SN stooping that low either.
(Score: 4, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday July 12 2019, @04:12PM
Some myths and truths:
1) Asking if somebody is suicidal does not increase the chances that they will commit suicide. [There does seem to be some correlation between successful celebrity suicides or others personally known and attempts, however.]
2) It is OK to ask someone if they intend to commit suicide. The big four questions are: Are you thinking about committing suicide? Are you thinking about "ending it all"? Are you thinking about harming yourself? Are you thinking about harming others?
3) All persons saying they are considering suicide should be treated seriously, and you should consider getting further help if you are not trained in assessment of suicide. You can still talk to the person. Assume that they are serious.
4) Not everyone who talks about or attempts suicide is diagnosed with mental illness. Some are. Either way, it's not something a layperson one should be worried about - you should be more worried about getting the person help.
4a) Sometimes people are in the process of getting help (and/or taking medications) but still may experience a crisis where they need help now and you may still help them even if they've already "gotten help."
5) Not everyone who considers suicide will verbalize it - be aware for other behaviors (and especially changes in behaviors) which may be a signal something is wrong.
6) The vast majority of people who are suicidal do not have any intent to harm someone else, however, you must protect your own safety because anyone who is contemplating suicide may also be contemplating taking others with them. Be sure you have an exit and do not place yourself in physical danger (try to grab someone/restrain them/"crowd" them, put them between you and the exit, etc.) without proper training. Do not let this fear stop you from talking to someone, again most people considering suicide are not harmful to others and are in need of help.
7) It's OK to not know what to say to somebody. Care and be yourself. Let them know they are not alone and you do not want them to do it. Repeat it. Wait with them. Listen. Let them talk. Get help.
8) You do not have to keep it secret if somebody else says they are thinking about it, even if they have asked you to keep it secret. You should tell someone.
9) People do not always remain suicidal. It is not necessarily a permanent personality trait.
10) Some people may not be able to be helped, but you may be the person that can help someone. If you can, please do. If you need help, please reach out.
There are classes for laypeople for Mental Health First Aid. https://www.mentalhealthfirstaid.org/ [mentalhealthfirstaid.org] Sometimes they are free and sometimes they have cost.
Finally, and this should be in every single story about suicide: The US National Suicide Prevention hotline number is 1-800-273-8255 which will route you to a regional or local hotline. You can also text 741741. Googling "suicide" will bring up a chat link as well. (Editors, any chance that can be added to the story? Thanks!)
This sig for rent.