Almost 800,000 people commit suicide every year, which makes a fatality rate higher than wars, cancer or homicide, says the World Health Organization (WHO).
In view of the aforementioned staggering figures, Reddit — an American social news aggregation website — has announced a new tool for suicide prevention by teaming up with Crisis Text Line — a global not-for-profit organisation providing free confidential crisis intervention.
According to the details of the service that will be effective from March 10 this year, it will allow users to report those, who they believe are at risk, so that Reddit can provide them with prevention resources.
The reported user will get a private message with suicide prevention resources and a recommendation to text ‘CHAT’ to 741741 — the number for the Crisis Text Line.
Once the Reddit user has reached out to the text line, a trained crisis counselor will be available for support.
This is not the first time a social media platform has offered to provide suicide prevention help. as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat also have pages listing global suicide prevention resources.
