Items tagged with Suicide
It's not often that Facebook rolls-out features I consider to be useful, but it's hard to argue that suicide-prevention features it launched last month are good, or are at least backed by good intentions. The easiest-to-use feature is to flag a post as being made by a suicidal person, at which point Facebook will contact the person at next login, and offer them ways to get help. If the situation is dangerous, Facebook might decide to contact the person's local police. That's all fine and dandy, but people must realize that these features aren’t meant to be abused. A San Mateo man learned this the hard way; he threatened to hang himself on his Facebook wall, at which point someone (a...
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Just in case you were looking a buzzkill after the chaotic euphoria wrought by CES, here it is: According to the Guardian, dozens of Foxconn workers in the city of Wuhan protested the company’s plan to close the Xbox 360 production line they worked on by threatening to jump from one of the six-story factory buildings. Indeed, a large number of workers stood atop the roof as Wuhan city personnel talked them down. Foxconn planned to close down the line and either transfer those who worked there or pay them severance. Apparently, there was confusion among the ranks, as various sources said that Foxconn offered no severance (only transfers), that Foxconn initially offered severance but then...
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Foxconn has decided that China is too expensive. We knew it had to happen someday. Seriously, Foxconn has decided its Shenzhen factory, which recently saw raises in the wake of a wave of suicides, is too expensive, except for iPhone manufacturing. The Shenzhen plant, has comprises 11 business groups and employs 300,000 employees will merge with the Guanlan plant, which employs 100,000 workers, according to a source who works at an R&D department at the Shenzhen plant said. Interestingly, the Foxconn group will continue building iPhones (and one would presume, iPads) in Shenzhen. Foxconn produces goods for several companies, including Apple, Dell, Nokia, and more. Foxconn announced on June...
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Foxconn thinks they have a solution to the mounting suicides that have rocked the company's China operations: pay the workers more money. According to reports, Foxconn plans to raise wages by 30 percent, which still isn't all that much, but it's a start. One report has the basic salary at Foxconn's China plants at about 900 yuan a month, or just over $130. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an unauthorized Foxconn spokesman told the Associated Press that the pay raise is designed to reduce overtime and give workers "more time for leisure and have a happier working environment. It may also help cut the turnover rate and raise productivity and product quality level." Foxconn is the biggest supplier...
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We'd like to say that Foxconn has been under fire for a rash of employee suicides that have occurred this year, but up until now, the company hasn't really been under fire at all, not by those who have the power to make a difference, anyway. It was less than a week ago that we reported another Foxconn worker had fallen from a building to his death, at the time the tenth fall since the start of the year, eight of which ended up being fatal. It's a sad situation and we questioned why there was a veil of silence, not just from Foxconn, but also from the companies who use Foxconn for manufacturing of their products, including Apple. Well, the veil of silence has finally been lifted, starting with...
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So, it turns out those reports last October about Foxconn making the new Apple tablet (renamed iPad) were probably true. But it also seems that some of those folks who couldn't quite keep a lid on Apple's secrets may be in very bad positions over in China. A report stemming from the country and coming just days after Apple announced that it had sold 300,000 of their tablets on the first day in America has shocked the collective tech world, and not in a positive way.Foxconn's Longhua plant is veiled in secrecy. It's said that around 300,000 workers both live and work at the plant, which makes consumer electronics for Apple, Dell, HP, Nokia and tons of other companies that brand the goods you buy...
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In the wake of a story about a Foxconn worker committing suicide after an iPhone prototype he was responsible for was lost, Foxconn's parent company Hon Hai has suspended a security official. Sun Tanyong, 25, an employee at Foxconn, reportedly committed suicide by jumping off his dormitory roof on July 16th after one of the 16 iPhone prototypes he was assigned to mail went missing. He had reportedly been subjected to rather heavy-handed tactics and searches. Bloomberg reports that the official has been identified only by the surname "Gu." Foxconn FactoryIn a statement, Hon Hai said it offered condolences to Sun’s family, and noted that Foxconn did not authorize anyone to violate the law. Apple...
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A series of tweets on Demi Moore's twitter feed help saved a 47-year-old San Jose, California woman's life, according to reports. One of the hundreds of thousands of followings of Demi Moore's Twitter stream, mrskutcher, sandieguy, wrote a message to Moore early Friday morning. "Getting a knife, a big one that is sharp. Going to cut my arm down the whole arm so it doesn't waste time."Followed a few seconds later by: "gbye ... gonna kill myself now." Later that morning, the message was retweeted to Moore's Twitter stream. A comment from Moore said: Everyone I was very torn about responding or retweeting that woman's post but felt uncomfortable just letting it goAfter that, followers of the stream...
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A 19-year-old has apparently committed suicide while filming himself on the online live-video streaming service Justin.TV. According to NewTeeVee, not only has the suicide been confirmed, but he was apparently egged on by commenters at both Justin.TV and BodyBuilding.com. Abraham K. Biggs killed himself on camera Wednesday night. His handle was CandyJunkie on the Bodybuilding.com forum and Feels Like Ecstasy on Justin.TV. According to reports, he posted a suicide note on the Bodybuilding.com forum, but strangely (suspiciously), that forum is down for "maintenance." The suicide note was cross-posted to this forum, however. At that point, Biggs turned on his Justin.TV channel, took the pills and...
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You probably remember the Megan Meier case, in which a teenage girl committed suicide after a MySpace romance went bad. The romance itself and the boy involved were in fact fictional, perpetrated as a vindictive prank by the mother of a former friend who lived down the street.A Missouri woman who prosecutors say drove a 13-year-old neighbour girl to suicide with a cruel MySpace hoax pleaded innocent to federal charges on Thursday in the unprecedented case. Lori Drew, who is accused of creating the fake MySpace persona of a 16-year-old boy to woo and then viciously reject neighbour Megan Meier, pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and accessing a protected computer to obtain information....
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Blockbuster is offering to buy Circuit City. They made the offer privately in February, and made it publicly today; a defacto appeal to Circuit City shareholders to pressure the board to sell. If you were on the Lusitania, would you accept a ride on the Titanic? Circuit City is struggling, Blockbuster still has rental-movie money to throw around, but can read the video-on-demand writing on the wall. Let's play Corporate-Speak Bingo with Chairman and CEO of Blockbuster Jim Keyes' statement. "Our proposal offers Circuit City a significant premium to its existing stock price and creates a game-changing retail concept with a sustainable competitive advantage. We believe the combination...
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The Megan Meier MySpace case, in which Megan committed suicide after a MySpace hoax committed by no less than an adult, has caused a Missouri community to craft a law to prevent something from this from happening again, at least without some punishment for the perpetrators.The goal of the ordinance, said Assistant City Attorney John Young, is to punish people who use threatening or obscene language or images through electronic communication to inflict emotional distress on another person. Young said he researched similar legislation in other cities and states in drafting the ordinance.Megan Meier hanged herself with a cloth belt from a support beam in a closet in her Dardenne Prairie home Oct....
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