An Augusta student hasn’t been able to sleep since the weekend. Ever since he saw a video of a man falling to his death from the roof of Augsburg’s town hall, he has suffered. In the meantime he needs psychiatric treatment, a teacher tells BR. Other students also reported sleep problems and nightmares.
Video redistributed to cell phones
The video is circulating in almost every school in the region. One teacher reports that it is posted in personal chats, shown around on bus rides or shared publicly on social networks. It even seems that some parents are sending videos of the accident to their children: “The fact that adults often pass them on to those in their care without thinking is extremely regrettable,” explains the education department of the city of Augsburg to BR.
Why videos in WhatsApp status are so fatal
Many post the suicide video in their WhatsApp status. The fatal thing: friends and followers see only a blue circle around their profile picture, which says: There’s news. But instead of the usual holiday or party photos, the man’s video now appears when you click on it. There is no notice. More and more children and young people are watching the video. Some intentionally, some unintentionally. “It can lead some people completely astray,” says the teacher.
Thomas Fink, rector of the Eichenwald school in Neusäß, asked his students’ parents via direct message to check their children’s phones, delete the video if necessary and explain to them “that the whole thing is not only morally questionable, but also punishable”. . The student who flashed the video around on the bus has now been visited by the police. A step in the right direction, according to Principal Fink: “Words are spreading that the police are following every suggestion.”
The crisis service needs more staff
Fink is pleased that a girl who has been trained by the school in cooperation with the police to become a so-called media scout has tipped. These are students who are supposed to work as mediators when children are overwhelmed by the content of television or the Internet.
In addition to the school psychologists, the Swabian District Crisis Service is an important point of contact for affected or worried parents. He can be reached on the toll-free number 0800/655 3000. Since the weekend there have been so many calls that it has sometimes been necessary to increase staff. Additionally, mobile teams were deployed when advice and telephone support were no longer sufficient.
This is what experts advise affected parents
Georg Schalk, spokesman for the district hospital, advises concerned parents the following: “Talk to your child. Try to explain what happened. Encourage the child to express his feelings. If you have the impression that the child or young person is heavily burdened, don’t be afraid to get professional help.” Mentally challenged children in particular would suffer.
The videos are mainly distributed via WhatsApp, a subsidiary of the Facebook group, where, according to their own statements, they go a long way in eliminating objectionable content. But WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted. This means that only the recipients can see the messages, not even WhatsApp itself knows what users are typing or uploading.
Messaging services can hardly be controlled
Child pornography videos are also increasingly disseminated via WhatsApp, especially among young people. Often the only way is to report such content to WhatsApp. Research by the magazine “ProPublica” revealed in 2021 that around 1,000 people are busy checking reported content. In the current case of the suicide videos, investigators from the Augsburg Cybercrime Commissioner also reported the content to WhatsApp.
This shows that the investigators exhaust all avenues. But it also shows how limited the authorities are in such cases. “By itself, the police cannot delete such videos without the involvement of social media platforms and cannot prevent them from being distributed via WhatsApp,” a police spokesman explains.
The human factor
Ultimately, the understandable need to communicate privately on messengers hinders effective content moderation. And unlike platforms like Facebook or Instagram, WhatsApp as a messaging service isn’t subject to the Network Enforcement Act, which would give authorities more options.
And the human factor remains. A witness who happened to be in the town hall square on the day of the suicide reported that a person filmed the incident. He confronted the person and asked what he wanted to do with it: “I’m putting it on the Internet now,” was the reply. The witness of the accident was so horrified that he contacted a psychological hotline. Many children and young people should have seen the play by now.
