Tragedy of Japanese man’s internet suicide

There really isn’t much to add to this such is the tragedy of this story.

Extracts from the Telegraph below:

A Japanese man has committed suicide live on the internet after being egged on by users of an online chat room.

The 24-year-old man, who has not been named, was found dead in his apartment in the city of Sendai early on Tuesday morning. Police had been alerted by viewers of the Ustream web page and were able to locate the man’s apartment. By the time they arrived at 8am, however, the man was already dead.

The man had announced his intention to kill himself in online chat rooms last week, according to the Yomiuri newspaper, after complaining for some weeks about problems he had been experiencing at work.

While some people posted messages attempting to talk him out of going through with his plans, others encouraged him to kill himself. Apparently believing they were watching a hoax, some viewers even suggested that he hurry up and get it over with.

People watching online debated whether the footage was genuine until Ustream halted the broadcast and the police were informed.

The Telegraph’s attention grabbing headline ‘Japanese man streams suicide live on the internet’ is misleading as, from the details, it seems that the transmission was cut before the man killed himself.

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