Bangalore: Facebook has announced to commence its new tool for counseling people who are considering suicide. The system will report the suicidal posts in its site, and also friends can report such behaviors; then Facebook will send an automated message to the post’s author, along with a link to chat with the counselor for suicide prevention and the number of National Suicidal Prevention Lifeline.

As nearly 100 Americans die by committing suicide every day, Google and Yahoo, long back had systematized their sites to show the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) as the first search result when someone searches for “suicide” using their sites. Facebook is also trying to do the same only in a better way as it is seeking to provide crisis counseling for those who express suicidal thoughts on their social networking site to get help. This latest tool from Facebook aims to improve safety on its site. It has also announced changes to how users report bullying, offensive content and fake profiles.

The NSPL organization handles around 70,000 calls per month, and has come across many such people in crisis who don’t feel comfortable picking up the phone but want to talk to someone. Thus this instant message or online help is perfect solution to this.

Lifeline’s project manager, John Draper said, “This new service provides a way for them to get the help they need in the way they want it.” The organization said they will make sure that crisis center workers are available 24 hours a day seven days a week to respond to Facebook users who prefer to use a chat session.

"One of the big goals here is to get the person in distress into the right help as soon as possible," Fred Wolens, public policy manager at Facebook, told The Associated Press. “This was a natural progression from something we’ve been working on for a long time”, Wolens said. The worried friends who will report such behavior will also receive a message in reply to inform that it is being addressed. He also said that all the reporting on the site is done anonymously and so a distressed user will not know who reported the suicidal content.

Facebook has seen such ill-fated incidents. In September 2010, Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University student, put an end to his death, by posting his last words on Facebook that, “Jumping off the GW (George Washington Bridge), sorry”.

In another incident which took place in Pennsylvania, police was able to prevent such suicidal case after getting informed by a friend of his, who posted a distressed comment in Facebook.

Ashley Billasano also committed suicide after tweeting, “That’s the story of how I come to be who I am,” by which she meant, ‘I’d love to hear what you have to say but I won’t be around’.

 “The only people who will have a really good idea of what’s going on is your friends so we’re encouraging them to speak up and giving them an easy and quick way to get help,” Wolens added. The new suicide reporting tool will be made available to people who use Facebook in the United States and Canada.