Russian Media and Internet Users Debate the Ethics of Reporting on Teenage Suicide · Global Voices
The investigation of mysterious groups on VKontakte full of images of whales and butterflies that Novaya Gazeta claims drive teenagers to take their own lives has met with public criticism. Image from VKontakte.
Whales. Butterflies. Rina. f57. These words, images, and names have been circulating on the Russian media and social networking sites this past week after independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta published an article exposing groups on VKontakte that allegedly promote suicide. Since May 16, the Russian Internet has been buzzing with what media website Slon.ru called the “most important newspaper text of 2016.” But not everyone is thrilled with the investigation, with users questioning its ethics, its conclusions, and its methods.
On May 16, Novaya Gazeta reported on an investigation into 130 alleged teenage suicides that occurred between November 2015 and April 2016 in Russia. All of the victims, Novaya reporters said, were members of the same groups on Russian social network VKontakte, dedicated to themes of suicide or self-harm, and often posting shocking content.
Novaya Gazeta's investigation, titled “Groups of Death,” warned parents to read the findings “so that they could save their children from risk” and so that they could learn to identify the slightest details of looming tragedy and teach it to other parents. Some RuNet users found the reporters’ stance biased and their tone as bordering on the cusp of hysteria.
“Groups of Death 18+”
Secret, private groups on social media that entice teenagers to take their own lives. Sounds like the plot of a bizarre horror movie. And yet hundreds of these groups are allegedly active and thriving on VKontakte. 534
“Who are these people?” asked Novaya Gazeta. “Spiritual freaks, maniacs, Satanists, fascists?”
As the investigation, now picked up by other news outlets and Internet users, continues, the administrators of these groups emerge as seemingly regular members of society. <PERSON>, the main administrator of the most popular group “f57” , is a 21-year-old sound engineer living in the greater Moscow area. At this point in the investigation, he is hailed as the main orchestrator of content allegedly meant to incite suicide, including videos of his own (obviously fake) suicide, images of self-mutilation, and poems lamenting the bitter cruelty of being alone in the world.
Тебя бросил парень?
Устала от учёбы?
Часто сидишь в Вк?
Никто не пишет?
Загляни в Темная сторона меня, там кое-что есть для тебя
Boyfriend broke up with you?
Tired of studying?
Always hanging out on VKonakte?
No one writing to you?
Take a look at My dark side [page], maybe there is something for you there
On the surface, this looks like a disturbed individual (or individuals) trying to lure a bunch of teenagers into a weird Internet cult. But what precisely about these groups caused so many teenagers to join and then, allegedly, take their own lives? That's where <PERSON> comes in.
<PERSON> is a 16-year-old girl from Russia's Far East who took her own life in November 2015. The community administrators circulated her last selfie before her death captioned “Meow. Goodbye,” as well as her postmortem pictures and screenshots of her text messages. As a cult of personality started around <PERSON>, teenagers across the country began stalking her VKontakte page, reposting her statuses, music, pictures. “<PERSON>, you are the best,” users scrawled on her wall. “It's such a shame that I never knew you. You're my hero, I love you, you have the most incredible eyes, like you just appeared to us out of an anime.”
In addition to encouraging the cult of personality, administrators circulated pictures of whales and butterflies, allegedly claiming that these symbols represented anguish and loneliness. Whales are the only animals known to die by suicide by beaching themselves when they are “in despair.” Many butterflies only live for a day. 880