In the Zama serial murders of nine people (see below), the victims came into contact with the alleged killer Takahiro Shiraishi on Twitter via the keyword "suicide." Social media still overflows with posts saying, "I want to die."
The Yomiuri Shimbun spoke to three experts about what steps can be taken to prevent such an incident from occurring again. The following are excerpts from the interviews.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Sept.11, 2018)
Quick responses from counselors crucial
I provide counseling to women in their teens and 20s who are experiencing difficulties in life. The reasons vary from person to person, from bullying to poverty, relationship problems, isolation and general anxiety about the future. There are some who are driven to contemplate suicide for reasons that might seem trivial to other people.
In an opinion poll of women we counseled after the Zama incident, about 70 percent of the 100 respondents answered that they had posted "I want to die" on social media. The majority used a "shadow account" they keep secret from those around them.
Young people turn to anonymous social media because they have made up their mind that the people close to them such as parents, teachers or friends will not understand, or because they fear rejection. In order not to lose their place in society, they conduct themselves differently in the real world, acting as though nothing is wrong, and confess their problems in the world of social media. It is difficult for the people around them to even notice that something is wrong.
The seriousness of posting "I want to die" on social media depends on the person, but they all share the desire to have someone sympathize with them. In their heart of hearts, they are looking for somewhere that they can be close to someone. There are also many young people who struggle to find the words to express their feelings of suffering other than "I want to die."
Depending on the response, it is possible to help them. However, in the anonymous world of social media, there are people who take advantage of that. There are women who met men who replied to them and were sexually assaulted. Cases in which the person used a female name but turned out be a man when they met are not uncommon. Greater efforts are needed in schools and other places to communicate the potential dangers of social media.
I disagree with restricting posts about suicide. Deleting posts does not mean their suicidal thoughts go away; it merely covers up their call for help.
To assist young people seeking help on social media, we have no choice but to use social media. For counseling young people, a system that lets them receive counseling via the Line messaging app in addition to traditional methods such as via the phone would be an effective point of contact with them.
How quickly counselors respond to what they write is a crucial point. Young people these days hate it when they know their message has been read but receive no response, and tend to judge people who respond immediately to be more sympathetic toward them. People of the same age group who can understand the sensibilities unique to young people would be best as counselors.
Starting in March this year, we began an internet patrol to seek out people posting suicidal thoughts and other messages on social media and connecting them with counseling. What we need to do right now is to create an environment that fits with the times where young people feel safe confessing their problems.
-- This interview was conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer Tetsuhiro Kato.
-- Jun Tachibana / Representative of Bond Project
Tachibana founded the Bond Project to assist young women suffering from abuse, poverty and other issues in 2009. She serves on a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry investigative commission examining how best to provide support for women. She is 47.
Develop AI to spot signs of suicide risk
The spread of social media has realized the internet's fundamental value as a place where people can connect to anyone, anytime, anywhere. It has transformed the way we communicate.
On Twitter, it is possible to add hashtags to posts and search for them, so it is extremely easy to match up with other users who share the same inclinations and interests.
The Line messaging app, which is popular in Japan, lets users exchange messages in a conversational format 24 hours a day, either one-on-one or in small groups. It also has a "stamp" feature that allows users to express their feelings through pictures, making it easier to develop an emotional bond than through face-to-face conversation. There is a significant difference compared to email or internet messaging boards where one needs to write a certain amount of text.
The benefits social media brings to society are immeasurable, but they are also a double-edged sword. In the Zama incident, the targets were young people lured in with a hashtag that expressed suicidal thoughts. The unique features of social media were used in the worst possible way.
To prevent incidents like this, instead of lumping together "posts about suicide," it is necessary to clearly delineate between posts with suicidal wishes such as "I want to die" and those that encourage or incite others to commit suicide or self-harm, and approach the issue from both sides.
After the incident, Twitter explicitly defined posts that encourage or incite suicide as "violations" of user rules, and is deleting them and freezing accounts. In January this year, the Internet Hotline Center, a private group contracted by the National Police Agency to serve as a clearinghouse for reporting illegal information, also began submitting removal requests for posts that "facilitate" suicide or recruit people for suicide pacts, or reporting them to police.
At the same time, people have not stopped expressing suicidal thoughts on social media, even after the incident. It is said that restricting them will have an effect opposite to preventing suicide. There are also concerns from the standpoint of freedom of expression as well. In reality, it is unfeasible.
Instead, it is better to think of social media as a tool that makes people who are suffering more visible, and expand systems where people who have problems can get in touch with medical and psychological experts. For example, it might also be possible to develop and refine a specialized AI that can accurately assess imminent suicides and pick out those posts.
It is true of any measures that "there is no stopping once you start," and it will also require manpower. However, it seems that the Zama incident prompted a considerably wider understanding of the fact that while modern society enjoys the benefits of social media, it also pays a price for them.
-- This interview was conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer Hirofumi Morita.
-- Masakatsu Morii / Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at Kobe University
A doctor of engineering, Morii is an expert on information and communications engineering and network security. He served as an engineering professor at Tokushima University before assuming his current post in 2005. He is 59.
Police must use new tools in the internet era
In the Zama incident, the perpetrator and the nine victims connected on social media. That point of connection was not visible in their everyday lives in the real world. Nine missing person reports were filed with the police, but it would have been difficult to find any clues leading to Shiraishi through a conventional investigation.
The number of missing persons reported in Japan last year rose to 84,850. Of them, roughly 70 percent were "special missing persons" who have possibly committed suicide.
Even when a report is received, if there are words or actions by the missing person to imply their suicidal thoughts, the police typically do not think there is a high likelihood that they fell victim to a crime. In addition to day-to-day criminal investigations, they are also consulted on a steadily rising number of cases of stalking, domestic violence and the like, making it difficult under the current circumstances to allocate a large number of staff to investigate missing persons who have a high probability of having committed suicide.
What we need to examine as a lesson from this incident is utilizing cyberspace in missing person investigations.
In real life, investigators can follow information as it spreads from associate to associate, but social media connections are difficult to observe from the outside. Due to the privacy of communications, under the status quo, exchanges on social media are not disclosed to the police except in cases such as when there is an extremely high level of urgency. These days, it is believed that there are many clues on social media, but the current reality is that it cannot be used for investigations.
We must strengthen cooperation with social media and telecommunications companies, and devise a system that facilitates disclosure. It is necessary for the police to examine how best to utilize cyber resources further.
Connections within the local community are another area in need of improvement. It seems strange that no information at all connected with the incident was forthcoming from the people around the perpetrator. If reports had been received from residents who noticed the smell of the bodies or suspicious behavior by Shiraishi, it might have been possible to limit the widening extent of the harm done.
A police white paper in 2014 indicated that the attenuation of relationships in local communities is having an effect on investigations, and this incident served to reinforce our awareness of the negative impact it is having. There may have been people who thought something was suspicious but did not tell the police. Having seen the proof of this, creating an environment in which citizens feel comfortable providing information is necessary for the sake of the police, too.
However, in this case, it was pointed out that the Gunma Prefectural Police overlooked the perpetrator in security camera footage. There are indeed limits to what can be detected by inspecting an enormous number of images with the naked eye. Image analysis technology is improving day by day, and it will likely become possible to detect suspects automatically. We should consider using cutting edge technology to reduce the potential for human error as well.
-- This interview was conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer Shoji Takeda.
-- Masahiro Tamura / Former President of the National Police Academy
Tamura joined the National Police Agency in 1977. He served as chief of the Fukuoka Prefectural Police and in other posts before becoming president of the National Police Academy in 2012. After retiring in 2013, he now serves as a professor of police administrative law at Kyoto Sangyo University, while working as a lawyer. He is 64.
-- Zama serial murders of nine people
On Oct. 30, 2017, the dismembered corpses of eight women and one man were discovered in an apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture. The resident of the apartment, Takahiro Shiraishi, was arrested, and he was charged with multiple counts of burglary, forcible sexual intercourse and murder on Sept. 10. Shiraishi admitted to the murder of all nine victims.
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