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Show HN: CheckUp – Social network suicide prevention in Go

checkupapp.org

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Re: Show HN: CheckUp – Social network suicide prevention in Go

#2
I think this is really cool. Clarifying question from these two statements that seem to conflict:

> The goal of the CheckUp project is to detect any serious sign of depression, self-harm or suicide posted to a social network and provide peer support by notifying a concerned party.

> The app works by checking the tweets on your home timeline every few minutes and sending you an email notification if a tweet is flagged.

Shouldn't it instead make the person signing up the "concerned party" to be notified via e-mail, and instead have that concerned party specify which twitter feeds to watch? I'm probably missing something here.

Re: Show HN: CheckUp – Social network suicide prevention in Go

#3
post #2

I think this is really cool. Clarifying question from these two statements that seem to conflict: > The goal of the CheckUp project is to detect any serious sign of depression, self-harm or suicide posted to a social network and provide peer support by notifying a concerned party. > The app works by checking the tweets on your home timeline every few minutes and sending you an email notification if a tweet is flagged…

I don't have Twitter, but I'm pretty sure "home timeline" means everyone you follow.

Re: Show HN: CheckUp – Social network suicide prevention in Go

#4
post #2

I think this is really cool. Clarifying question from these two statements that seem to conflict: > The goal of the CheckUp project is to detect any serious sign of depression, self-harm or suicide posted to a social network and provide peer support by notifying a concerned party. > The app works by checking the tweets on your home timeline every few minutes and sending you an email notification if a tweet is flagged…

Hey thanks for the feedback! I will try to update the site to clarify the language a little more –– what you described actually is how it works. The user that signs up is the concerned party that we would notify. The app watches all tweets on that user's home timeline. By "home timeline", I was referring to all tweets posted by the user and everyone followed by that users (so, your Twitter feed). That's how it's described in Twitter's API docs, but I can see where that may be a point of confusion.

Re: Show HN: CheckUp – Social network suicide prevention in Go

#6

This sounds like a great service but I really don't give a damn that it is written in Go. Also: > This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later.

Hey! Thanks for the heads up. We picked up more traction than I had anticipated, but we should be back online now! And some people may be interested in the Go repo ;)

Re: Show HN: CheckUp – Social network suicide prevention in Go

#7
This seems a little accidentally sinister to me... Something about doing automatic sentiment analysis on someone's data without their permission seems morally questionable. I mean, almost none of us are happy when the government does it, even though it's allegedly with the (very questionably) "good" intention of "fighting (terrorism|drugs|bogeymen)".

Re: Show HN: CheckUp – Social network suicide prevention in Go

#8
I can understand why you think this might be a good idea. But it completely doesn't take the depressed person into account at all. It thinks it can solve suicide by checking up on the individual? Do you think the individual wants to be checked up on? Maybe the people checking up on the person are the actual problem in that person's life, which could create an even more serious dilemma for that person.

If there is anything that would drive me to suicide, it would be more people thinking that they can 'solve the problem' in this manner.

Re: Show HN: CheckUp – Social network suicide prevention in Go

#9
post #8

I can understand why you think this might be a good idea. But it completely doesn't take the depressed person into account at all. It thinks it can solve suicide by checking up on the individual? Do you think the individual wants to be checked up on? Maybe the people checking up on the person are the actual problem in that person's life, which could create an even more serious dilemma for that person. If there is any…

Cynical. Depression is often the cause of suicide. Its not 'caused' by people trying to socialize. Makes perfect sense to me to monitor my mental state externally, just like I check my blood pressure and weight.

Re: Show HN: CheckUp – Social network suicide prevention in Go

#10
post #8

I can understand why you think this might be a good idea. But it completely doesn't take the depressed person into account at all. It thinks it can solve suicide by checking up on the individual? Do you think the individual wants to be checked up on? Maybe the people checking up on the person are the actual problem in that person's life, which could create an even more serious dilemma for that person. If there is any…

If a "depressed" person is posting things that flag a SUICIDE watch app, then I'd say they are obviously posting those things to draw attention to their issues. Therefore someone noticing would probably be just what they want.
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