Twitter launches dedicated search prompt #ThereIsHelp for World Suicide Prevention Day

Twitter is working with National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) in India to help spread awareness and help prevent suicide.

When someone searches for terms associated with suicide or self harm, the top search result will be a prompt directing them to the relevant information and sources of help available on Twitter. (Twitter )

Marking World Suicide Prevention Day, Twitter India has announced an initiative that will help spread awareness and encourage action to prevent suicide and self harm. 

The micro-blogging platform announced this new initiative in a partnership with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) and has launched a dedicated search prompt that will help connect people with information and updates from reliable authorities on the subject of suicide prevention.

So how will this work?

When someone searches for terms associated with suicide or self harm, the top search result will be a prompt directing them to the relevant information and sources of help available on Twitter. This initiative is an expansion of Twitter's #ThereIsHelp prompt, which was specifically put in place to help people find clear, credible information on critical issues.

 

The aim is to spread awareness and get people the help they need.  (Twitter)

The aim is to spread awareness and get people the help they need.  (Twitter)

The new search prompt will be available across platforms on iOS, Android, and on mobile.twitter.com in India, in both English and Hindi languages. Some of the search keywords include: #CommitSuicide, #EndLife, #HowtoHangMyself, #Howtohangyourself, #PainlessDeath, #Suicidal, #SuicideAttempt, #SuicideMethods, #SuicideNote, #SuicideSupport etc.

This is Twitter's third year running for its partnership with World Suicide Day Prevention and International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) globally. 

Twitter also activated a custom emoji in the shape of an orange ribbon, the international symbol for World Suicide Prevention Day, to mark this day. The orange ribbon appears when people tweet with the hashtags #WorldSuicidePreventionDay, #WSPD, #WSPD2020, #SuicidePrevention and will be visible till September 25 and can be activated in 23 languages.

Users can also search for suicide prevention information on Twitter -

For the app, you need to click on the Explore tab, type in suicide-related keywords in the Search bar. Once you press enter, you will be able to see the “ThereIsHelp” prompt right on top of the search results. For Twitter on web, you can run the same search from the Home tab.