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The Internet often is implicated as a possible cause or information source after highly publicized suicide-massacre tragedies. Previous studies have shown how suicide Web forums and suicide pacts have helped depressed individuals facilitate their own suicides. Investigators report the results of an Internet search that they conducted in May 2007 to see what information about suicide was available.
The authors entered 12 broad terms based on the word “suicide” into the four most popular search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask). They compiled the 10 top- ranking sites for each term and search engine, yielding a total of 480 Web pages (hits), including 90 dedicated suicide sites: 45 encouraged, promoted, or facilitated suicide (prosuicide s…