19-Year-Old Commits Suicide Live on Justin.tv

[0ni0n]

19-year-old Commits Suicide on Justin.tv

In a striking display of the power of live video, Abraham K. Biggs committed suicide on Wednesday while broadcasting himself on video site Justin.tv. As we understand it from various forum posts, the 19-year-old Floridian was apparently egged on by commenters on Justin.tv and fellow forum users on bodybuilding.com. Biggs overdosed on pills while on camera and appeared to be breathing for hours until watchers realized he might be serious, at which point they alerted the police. The video kept running until police and EMTs broke Biggs’ door down and blocked the camera’s view.
We confirmed Biggs’ death with the Broward County medical examiner. The Justin.tv video and many of the forum posts have been taken down.
When asked about the broadcast via email, Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel said:

As for the broadcaster incident last night, we don’t comment on individual videos, however, our policy prohibits inappropriate content on Justin.tv. We rely on the community to flag videos that they feel are objectionable. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed and quickly removed from the system if it violates our Terms of Use.

We won’t post the disturbing content here, but much of it is still online. Images of the broadcast have been posted here and here, and there’s also a suicide note from Biggs, who went by the screenname CandyJunkie. An account of forum users watching the broadcast and calling the police is here. There are also rest-in-peace comments on what appears to be Biggs’ MySpace page. The Justin.tv broadcast used to be here.
The contention that filming and uploading (and even hosting video of) a crime is a crime as well might not be valid, but given the very nature of live broadcasts, the issue becomes more complicated.
And it’s not as if technology enabled the taking of a life, or as if this hasn’t happened before. A British man hung himself last year after allegedly being goaded on by fellow users on Paltalk, another live video site. There was even a widely distributed movie on the topic of live-streamed killings released earlier this year called Untraceable. But last night’s incident raises a thought-provoking question regarding free hosting of live broadcasts — what could sites like Justin.tv possibly do to prevent live-streamed snuff films?
Justin.tv has already come under fire for another problem with live broadcasts — copyright infringement. The Premier League is reportedly threatening legal action against the site over unauthorized broadcasts of soccer games. Justin.tv, which is a free service, has maintained it complies with takedown requests according to the law — but with live broadcasts, the key event often ends before lawyers can get involved. Or in Biggs’ case, before people who care about him could get through.

Any thoughts?

[The Stig]

Evolution from IRC:

Brandon Vedas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brandon Carl Vedas (April 21, 1981 – January 12, 2003), also known by his nickname ripper on IRC, of Phoenix, Arizona, United States, was a drug user and member of the Shroomery.org community who died of an overdose on mostly prescription drugs. His death led to considerable debate about the responsibilities and roles of online communities in life-threatening situations.[citation needed]

Overview

The chat/webcam session apparently began by Vedas smoking cannabis in preparation, and then logging into the #shroomery IRC channel. Upon entering the channel he announced “I've got a grip of drugs” and indicated that his webcam was up, and that chatters were welcome to view his “grip of drugs” and his subsequent ingestion of them. While some of the substances were illicit drugs (e.g. cannabis), most of them had apparently been obtained through legitimate prescriptions for treatment of various illnesses from which Vedas was said to have suffered.
Vedas then began consuming Psilocybe mushrooms, which had been stored in a prescription medication bottle. As the chat session progressed, one of the users in the channel, grphish, noted “that's a lot of klonopin” and this is thought to be when Vedas consumed 8 mg of clonazepam (Klonopin). Vedas continued by showing the webcam viewers what would be one of four bottles of methadone that he would consume over the course of the session, and, after noting this on the channel, proceeded to consume an entire bottle (reportedly 80 mg of methadone). After a brief respite, Vedas then consumed 110 mg of propranolol (Inderal), two Vicodin tablets, and 120 mg temazepam (Restoril), which seem to have been taken in-between descriptions given on the IRC channel.
During this process, Vedas maintained that this was "usual weekend behavior" for him and that he had consumed similar quantities of the same substances on previous occasions. "I told u I was hardcore" was one of the last things Vedas typed, and is often used sarcastically on internet message boards and discussion sites.
Upon consuming the remainder of the original batch of drugs from the beginning of the webcam session, Vedas began to retrieve and prepare to consume even more drugs that he had stashed throughout the room. It was at this point that the users of the channel began to voice their concerns that Vedas was taking things too far. Some pleaded with him to stop while others recommended that he seek immediate medical attention. After taking another large quantity of the same drugs he had already ingested, Vedas gave instructions that if anything were to go wrong, that they should try to contact him by calling his cell phone, and if that didn't work, they should call the local authorities and give them the license plate number of his car, which was parked in his driveway and could easily be seen from the street.
When Vedas lost consciousness, users of the chatroom considered informing the police and asking that they trace Vedas's cellphone in order to locate him. However, the members of the channel were hesitant to contact the authorities for fear of involving Vedas and/or themselves in a police investigation. According to the chat logs, one user had even called 9-1-1 and asked the group if he was doing the right thing. After an emphatic "NO" response from another user, the user said "I talked my way out of it." and claimed that the police told them that there was no way to find Vedas with the information available.
According to Vedas's brother, who maintains the site brandonvedas.com, the information Brandon gave to the users in the chat, as well as the address in his domain name registration would have been enough for the police to locate Brandon, which he confirmed with local police. Later, Vedas's brother said about the incident, "It seems like the group mentality really contributed to it. These people treat it like somehow it's not the real world. They forget it's not just words on a screen."
His mother discovered the body in the afternoon of January 12, 2003.

Not much different really.

[Elesirdur]

Inappropriate for this board, disgusting for humanity. I hope he rests in peace.

But if we put it in spam we can talk shit about him all we want?

[Kuya]

It's not that it's alright to do it in spam; it's that spam is a good place to divert those who would act in a certain way to post elsewhere acknowledging that we can't control certain behaviour because it's simply too ubiquitous on the internet, but at the same time broadcasting the idea that it is not right, and therefore should be banished to a more decrepit place.

Or at least, that's how i view the purpose of spam and the leniency on rules there.

[Kyo]

Inappropriate for this board, disgusting for humanity. I hope he rests in peace.

What? There has been worse shit on these boards.

[Kiro]

One less person taking up tasty drugs.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

Inappropriate for this board, disgusting for humanity. I hope he rests in peace.

But self-mutilation threads are ok.

[Elesirdur]

But self-mutilation threads are ok.

What if they bled out from that? Then would it be inappropriate?

Just being a dick because I haven't have my coffee yet this morning.



And I feel like being a dick.

[MF Perm tha Fineass]

What if they bled out from that? Then would it be inappropriate?

Just being a dick because I haven't have my coffee yet this morning.



And I feel like being a dick.

Dicks are inappropriate for this board.

[BRP]

Complaining is inappropriate for this board.

Also no Darwinism yet? Color me impressed.

EDIT: Hahaha oh wow. I spoke too soon.

[Beckwin]

ctrl-f "emo faggot"

well, we're doing ok so far. but yeah, I don't see any meaningful discussion coming from this (which would be about online communities and how they treat their peers) before it devolves into the aforementioned Darwin and emo faggot spam (although it perfectly illustrates the exact problem/attitude in question).

[Titanss]

Inappropriate for this board, disgusting for humanity. I hope he rests in peace.

FoD show's this boards true humanity. I just saw a naked nun masturbating with a crucifix in it.

[Melchiah]

I can remember being a child, and doing something I knew I shouldn't do. When asked by an adult why committed the act, my response was attempt to shift blame from myself to another individual by saying "Jimmy told me to." It didn't work when I was 5, and it doesn't work now. Peers do not have control over your mind or your body. This guy wanted attention, and he got it. Mission accomplished. Forum membership egging him on is not a crime, nor do they share in the responsibility.

[Not Kuno]

Haha. I saw a thread on /b/ about this guy/forum a few days ago.. he was picking a fight with them, calling them all losers or something and they were talking about if they should troll him or not. I didn't know what became of that whole thing till now.

[BRP]

Also, I am noticing no sort of apologies to the family on either justin.tv or bodybuilding.com. I thought bodybuilding.com was a pro-bro site. This isn't cool, bro.

[Creeps]

Inappropriate for this board, disgusting for humanity. I hope he rests in peace.

Get off the internet

[Charla]

and no, none of those sites are okay, nor do I think they should be advertised anywhere. I know they exist, but I don't go to them, nor would give them publicity or access or links.

What kind of sites are "non-ok" exactly? Stickam? Youtube? What's the essential difference between stickam and youtube anyway? Is the time it takes to turn something into .flv a game-changer?

[Elesirdur]

Get off the internet

That's a little harsh, but I do agree that the censorship is misplaced here. Sure it's sad for those who knew him that he died but it sure doesn't make a damn sight of difference that this man lived or died. In fact, I would have gone my entire life not knowing of this man except that he died on streaming TV and someone posted it here on BG.

[Kurt Cobain]

video link? or am i overlooking it/it wasn't recorded?

[Kiro]

You shouldn't be on here, Kurt. You're dead.