Critical suicide studies, between methodology and ethics: Introduction

Institutional suicide as anomie: decedents speak out for work-related suicides through a Durkheimian exploration of suicide notes in a context without institutional responsibilization for suicide prevention

Introduction

Drawing on Durkheim's historical theorization of suicide, we extend his concept of anomic suicide, which is suicide due to a lack of social regulation, to introduce the concept of institutional suicide. We define institutional suicide as suicide due to the absence or decline of institutional policies, practices, and discourses for prevention. In this study, we explore the mechanisms for institutional suicides based on suicide notes Turkey, in a context without institutional responsibilization for prevention. Turkey provides a significant context for studying institutional suicides as policies, practices, and discourses for suicide prevention have been declining for some decades.

Methods

Drawing on publically available suicide notes and narratives in Turkish media outlets, we analyze 17 suicide notes and responses from their institutions of work and friends, family, and colleagues.

Findings and Discussion

We identify two mechanisms that lead to institutional suicides: (1) dehumanization due to lack of recognition and (2) misrecognition through a devaluation of potential. We extend the theory of anomie to institutional settings and offer social policy suggestions to improve institutional responses based on co-design based on suicide notes to prevent institutional suicides and call for institutional responsibilization for preventing work-related suicides.

The Googlization of Health: Invasiveness and corporate responsibility in media discourses on Facebook's algorithmic programme for suicide prevention

Big tech companies increasingly play a role in the domain of health. Also called the "Googlization of Health", this phenomenon is often studied by drawing on the notion of 'hostile worlds', where market values and common goods are incommensurable. Yet, the 'hostile worlds' theory is not uncontested; scholars for instance argue that the justifications of big tech companies are important analytical considerations as well. Building on this literature, in this paper I report on a case study of Facebook employing AI for suicide prevention, moving beyond Facebook's justifications only to study the ways in which media commentators and their audiences discussed Facebook's programme and the values they saw as being at stake. In the results, I show how invasiveness was, in different ways and forms, a main theme in thinking about Facebook using AI to do suicide prevention. Commentators and readers alike discussed how: 1) Facebook takes corporate responsibility with this initiative, or alternatively Facebook only has commercial interests and uses the notion of 'public good' to transgress spheres and sectors even further, thus being invasive; 2) Facebook's AI suicide prevention programme is invasive in relation to privacy and privacy laws, or, instead, people give up their privacy willingly in exchange for entertainment; 3) The programme undermines, rather than enhances, safety; 4) Suicide prevention in itself is already invasive. These different forms of invasiveness, I argue in the conclusion, also imply responsibility for different actors, from AI itself to Facebook through to medical professionals. Moreover, they show what values are at stake in, and transformed through, Facebook's AI suicide prevention programme, going beyond the frames of privacy and surveillance capitalism.