Thursday, March 17, 2011

The True Story
Stories are swirling over a girl named Emma who allegedly committed suicide on Christmas eve, 2008, as the result of some Facebook status update messages aimed at her. The status update messages directed at “Emma” are indeed horrible (see image below), however, there is doubt that a girl named Emma actually committed suicide on Christmas eve, or at all, even though a Facebook fan page entitled “Teenager committed SUICIDE because of THIS status update - Leaked from 2008″ would have you think otherwise. However, the story does match quite closely the suicide of Phoebe Prince, which occurred this January.
The question of whether someone named Emma was on Facebook in 2008, and committed suicide as a result of Facebook messages to her, is raised by a relatively new Facebook fan page, entitled “Teenager committed SUICIDE because of THIS status update - Leaked from 2008″. The Facebook fan page was created, it claims, to raise awareness of cyberbullying and to put a stop to cyberbullying.
The page has an image of the alleged messages, with a strategic section crossed out, saying that you have to “BECOME A FAN TO SEE FULL PIC”.
(Our image below shows the full set of messages, with nothing crossed out.)
This is known as a “squeeze” in marketing parlance, however it’s rather unusual on a Facebook fan page (not unheard of, but unusual - especially for such a supposedly altruistic effort).

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