Facebook’s Pattern Recognition for Helping Suicidal Users Isn’t Coming to EU

Facebook’s pattern recognition technology that detects suicidal thoughts in posts and videos on the platform is now being released worldwide, but not in the European Union. The technology was previously successfully tested in the US.

Guy Rosen, a chief executive of Facebook, didn’t say which other countries the technology will be released in, but he says it will be available around the world over time, he says. He indicated that the European Union was specifically exempted from these plans, although he did not give any reason.

The pattern recognition technology is used in messages and live streams that pay attention to the expression of suicidal thoughts. In doing so, not only the text in the message is taken into account, but also the text in comments. According to Facebook, during the test in the US, sentences in the comments like ‘Are you ok?’ or ‘Can I help?’ are strong indicators for finding messages or videos that would otherwise not have been detected.

In March, Facebook began a trial in the US, working closely with suicide prevention experts. According to Rosen, in the past month during the test in the US, in more than 100 cases, a counselor visited a person whose messages or videos had been suicidal, according to the system.

Recognizing suicidal tendencies in messages is done through pattern recognition. If the system detects that a user is exhibiting suicidal behavior, Facebook can offer that person help. This is done by displaying an on-screen notification that is visible only to the user, containing tips, or the suggestion to talk to a friend or contact a helpline.

Sometimes a team of experts is called in to warn the emergency services. Through artificial intelligence, priority is given to the messages and videos that need to be viewed by an expert the fastest.