Twitter India started an initiative aimed at spreading awareness and encouraging action to prevent suicide and self harm on World Suicide Prevention Day.

In partnership with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, Twitter is launching a dedicated search prompt to serve information and updates from authoritative sources on the subject of ‘suicide prevention’.

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 is an expansion of Twitter’s #ThereIsHelp prompt, which was specifically put in place for the public to find clear, credible information on critical issues.

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

Continuing its World Suicide Prevention Day partnership globally with the with the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) for the third year, Twitter is activating a custom emoji in the shape of an orange ribbon – the international symbol for World Suicide Prevention Day.

“As the world grapples with an unprecedented public health crisis, we are committed to ensure that anyone searching for information around mental health concerns on Twitter has access to credible resources,” said Mahima Kaul, Head of Public Policy, Twitter India.

According to the World Health Organization, almost 800,000 people die due to suicide every year, Twitter said. Further, suicide rates can increase in prolonged crises and experts note that the COVID-19 global pandemic will cause distress and leave many people vulnerable to mental health problems and suicidal behavior, it added. The Center for Disease Control reports that younger adults, racial/ethnic minorities and essential workers are disproportionately faced with these mental health challenges.

“This dedicated search prompt will increase our ability to be compassionate towards people around us, and help them in need by letting them know there is help,” said Prof. B N Gangadhar, Director – National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences.

Mastodon Over Twitter? Here’s Everything You Need To Know About The Social Network On Every…

Moving Over Twitter

It’s been a busy week for Indian twitterati. Much pent-up anger has been tweeted about, and things that have found a mention include politics (but of course), the impending Ayodhya verdict, Maharashtra power deal, Delhi lawyers scrapping with the cops and the India-Bangladesh T20 games.

But this is not all. Those frequent on Twitter would have noticed that many accounts on the micro-blogging platform have started using “Mastodon”. Many have tagged their names to the account and urged their followers to follow suit and quit Twitter to protest against the social platform’s policies..

Mastodon started popping up on timelines after Twitter suspended Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde’s account twice. What followed was outrage against what many thought was Twitter’s high-handedness when dealing with issues like hate speech.

Many users migrated, and batted for Mastodon’s stronger anti-abuse systems. This led to the social network’s name trending on Twitter as users announced their new accounts. A number of users joined a 24-hour boycott of Twitter from Nov. 6 noon. In India, Twitter has more than 30 million users.

To the uninitiated, Mastodon is not a Facebook or Twitter. It’s an open source network, where users can post, comment, follow other users and publish images and videos like on a conventional platform. As it’s an open source network, there is no single entity running the platform.

Mastodon is akin to an email service. You can set up an email account via your gmail or other mail account and send e-mail to users on different providers. The signup process involves creating a username, and providing email address, and password.

It was first released in October 2016 by a software developer named Eugen Rochko. The network claims to have more than 2.2 million users while Twitter has more than 300 million users.

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