Facebook Death: Taiwanese Woman Claire Lin Kills Herself While Talking To Online Friends

Posted: 28/03/2012 14:00 Updated: 28/03/2012 14:00

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None of Claire Lin's Facebook friend's alerted authorities

A woman committed suicide whilst chatting to Facebook friends, giving them a running commentary on her death, Tawainese police have reported.

Claire Lin, 31, posted pictures of her room and told friends: "Don’t write me anymore.”

Some of her friends tried to stop her by typing back, none of them phoned the police.

Lin was later found by her boyfriend, who alerted her family. Taipei police officer Hsieh Ku-Ming said that her family had been unaware of her final cry for help on Facebook.

Chai Ben-rei, a sociologist at Taiwan’s Feng Chia University told Associated Press that her Facebook friends may have not contacted authorities because people "have doubts of what they see on the Internet."

Lin had expressed despair online about her boyfriend ignoring her. Her last words were "Too late. Even while I’m dying, I still want FB (Facebook). Must be FB poison. Haha.”

Facebook urged users of its site to contact authorities in an emergency situation.

Need help? In the UK, call The Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90. For more support and advice, visit the website here.


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Filed by Felicity A Morse  | 
 
 
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06:49 PM on 04/08/2012
What a waste......... i would spend my last moments on Youtube , or watching porn , facebook is just ... so sad...
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WhyBeadNormal
I live by the Golden Rule...
01:24 PM on 03/29/2012
It's sad all around but even sadder that she spent her last moments on Facebook. What a waste.
04:58 PM on 03/29/2012
Why is that sad? It was just a vehicle for her to be in contact with friends.
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WhyBeadNormal
I live by the Golden Rule...
11:24 AM on 03/30/2012
It is sad because she was not really with her friends. If they were truly her friends, they would have been with her on her birthday. Instead, she was alone in a room. If they were truly her friends, they would have done more to intercede...called the police or something but they are not really friends, only Facebook acquaintances so none of them knew her phone number or family members to call for help. They probably didn't know her well enough to know if she was serious or not. The saddest part is that she probably didn't really want to die but it was a cry for help and she was overcome by the fumes and went to sleep. Nobody came to help her.

One other thing I found alarming is that she was not discovered until the next day by her boyfriend. What happened to the "friends" she was talking to on FB when she just stopped talking? Why didn't they react? She was saying she was killing herself and they tried to talk her out of it and then she just went away and they did nothing???? Those are not her friends.

Facebook is not real life, not real friends unless you have met them personally. It is a social club where you interact with people who have similar likes and interests but it's only on the surface, not a real connection to people. She obviously felt very disconnected or she would not have killed herself.
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12:47 PM on 04/02/2012
would it be okay if she had spent her last moments on Pinterest ?
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Christopher Koulouris
08:31 PM on 03/28/2012
Some say that suicide is an act of revenge, and in this case, Claire Lin made sure that her world of FaceBook friends were fully aware of why and how she was going to kill herself. It was almost as if she was offering a real-time play-by-play that would be forever recorded and absorbed, and felt, by her boyfriend. The ultimate revenge.

http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2012/03/how-a-duped-girlfriend-killed-herself-live-on-facebook/