if suicide is a self-directed, injurious behaviour, how far can a person be judged to be self-directed when acting under the influence of a purposeful online community? And is a person really choosing freely, Walton asks, when algorithms, which continued to show Aimee content relating to self-harm, power a darkening circle of interest and exposure? “That’s where I have a difficulty with calling it suicide,” Walton says. “My feeling is that Aimee was groomed into making the decision.”
The forum itself was founded by two men, according to a New York Times investigation, who run a number of websites for “incels”. Wanting to retrace her sister’s last steps, Walton visited the forum herself. “A lot of the posts are basically saying, ‘Your family don’t care about you’, ‘You should do it’. ‘When are you going to catch the bus?’ is a phrase they use.”
Walton believes that what takes place on the forum “is a type of radicalisation into an extreme action that people otherwise might not even have considered.” She is haunted by the possibility that the man who was with Aimee when she died was “living out a sick fantasy as an incel who wants to see a young and vulnerable woman end her life”.
— Read on www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/28/my-sister-was-found-dead-then-i-discovered-her-search-history-and-the-online-world-that-had-gripped-her
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