On October 14, a 25-year-old Chinese influencer ended her life live on social media, by swallowing pesticides.
This sequence, shocking, was more particularly for the subscribers of the young woman who witnessed this suicide live, reports RFI.
According to Chinese media, “Luoxiaomaomaozi”, as she called herself online, ended her days on Douyin (the Chinese TikTok) in front of some of her 678,000 followers, by drinking the toxic chemical mixed with a drink.
In doing so, she immediately lost consciousness after ingesting the poison. And although she was taken to the emergency room, there was nothing doctors could do to save her.
“This is probably my last video”
“This is not an advertisement to sell products,” she warned Thursday, October 14. This is probably my last video, because I have suffered from depression for a long time. ”
But the controversy goes beyond this live drama, since Internet users have “encouraged” the influencer to “drink quickly” the deadly drink. The question then arises as to whether viewers of the platform should be held responsible for “encouraging the behavior” that likely led to this tragedy, which the family strongly denounces.
According to the Global Times, a person claiming to be a friend of the deceased told Sichuan Guancha, a Sichuan TV-dependent media outlet, that “Luoxiaomaomaozi” had not thought of killing himself but wanted to lure her boyfriend away from this. manner. She reportedly spoke of suicidal thoughts after breaking up with him last April.
Pesticides remain the most widely used mode of suicide in China, but never before during live streaming.
“This incident shows that the platforms should step up supervision of the live broadcast and stop the livestream as soon as they see any problems,” Zhu Wei, communications researcher at the Chinese University of Political Science, told the Global Times. and right in Beijing. The man believes that keywords and artificial intelligence should make it possible to interrupt the broadcast.