@article{ref1,
title="Investigating Google's suicide-prevention efforts in celebrity suicides using agent-based testing: a cross-national study in four European countries",
journal="Social science and medicine (1982)",
year="2020",
author="Arendt, Florian and Haim, Mario and Scherr, Sebastian",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="RATIONALE: Google can act as a &quot;gatekeeper&quot; for individuals who seek suicide-related information online (e.g., &quot;how to kill oneself&quot;). The search engine displays a &quot;suicide-prevention result&quot; (SPR) at the very top of some suicide-related search results. This SPR comes as an info box and contains supposedly helpful crisis help information such as references to a telephone counseling service. <br><br>OBJECTIVE: It remains unknown, however, how Google has implemented the SPR in the especially dangerous context of celebrity suicide for which imitational copycat suicides in vulnerable individuals are most likely. <br><br>METHOD: Relying on agent-based testing, a computational social science method, we emulated a total of 137,937 Google searches in April 2019, using both general suicide-related and specific celebrity suicide-related search terms. Given the recently discovered language-based differences in SPR display rates, we held the language constant and focused on German-speaking populations in four European countries. <br><br>RESULTS: The SPR was never shown in searches for celebrities who died by suicide in all four countries. Furthermore, analyses indicated a digital divide in access to suicide-prevention information with moderately high SPR display rates in Germany and Switzerland, yet with no display in Austria and Belgium. <br><br>CONCLUSION: Higher SPR display rates could support global suicide-prevention efforts at virtually no cost by providing preventive information to vulnerable users precisely at the moment when it is apparently needed.<br><br>Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0277-9536",
doi="10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112692",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112692"
}