The Daily - ‘Kids Are Dying. How Are These Sites Still Allowed?’

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

This episode contains details about suicide deaths and strong language. A few years ago, a website about suicide appeared. On it, not only do people talk about wanting to die, but they share, at great length, how they are going to do it.Times reporters were able to identify 45 people who killed themselves after spending time on the site, several of whom were minors. The true number is likely to be higher.We go inside the Times investigation into the website, and ask how and why it is still allowed to operate.If you are having thoughts of suicide or are concerned that someone you know may be having those thoughts, in the United States call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. Go here for resources outside the United States.Guest: Megan Twohey, an investigative reporter for The New York Times; and Gabriel J.X. Dance, deputy investigations editor for The Times.Background reading: The Times investigation found that the suicide website had the trappings of social media, a young audience and explicit content that others don’t allow.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Hey, it's Michael. A quick note. Today's episode covers suicide and contains details about suicide deaths. If you're having thoughts of suicide or are concerned that someone you know may be having those thoughts, the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

is 1-800-273-8255. And there are links to additional resources in today's show notes. Let me tell you a little bit about me. I've been working on this story with a reporting partner, somebody named Gabriel Dance. We are both reporters in the investigations unit at the New York Times. And so... Today on The Daily. So Megan and I have been looking specifically at a site where they say, you know, they want to be a place where people can speak freely about suicide. A Times investigation. We website that facilitates suicide. We think that quite a few accountable parties should explain why a site like this is allowed to stay up. And what is your biggest concern about the website from what you've learned about it since?

Kids. Kids are dying. I'm sure you've talked to dozens of parents and they know. They're absolutely terrified. I spoke with my colleagues, Megan Toohey and Gabriel Dance, about why the site is so uniquely dangerous and why it's proven so difficult to shut down. It's Thursday, December 9th. Megan, Gabriel, tell me about this investigation that you have both been working on. So we've been reporting on a website that deals with suicide that was launched a few years ago when the suicide rate among young people in the U.S. was at a historic high.

in the U.S. was at a historic high. The site gets 6 million views each month with viewers from around the world. You know, that's four times as many views as the National Suicide Prevention website gets. So it's got a significant reach. Mm-hmm. And our reporting shows that this website is a really dangerous place.

Despite the fact that members post anonymously, Megan and I have been able to identify 45 people who killed themselves after spending time on the site, several of whom were minors. Wow. And after analyzing more than a million posts, we found that the true number of deaths is likely far higher, like hundreds more. Well, before we go any further, I have to ask, can't it also be dangerous to do what we're doing right now, which is to publish stories about suicide? So how did you grapple with that?

Yes, there is a concern that media coverage of suicide can lead people to harm themselves. And so we consulted with many suicide experts and debated that. And in the end, the Times concluded that the stakes were so high that we had an obligation to tell this story. Thank you so much for taking some more time to talk to me. Not least of all because we talked to so many parents who had no idea that this site existed, let alone that their kids were on it until it was too late. And they're so frustrated.

One of those parents is a woman named Sharon Luft. She lives outside of Dallas, and she told us about her 17-year-old son, Matthew. So I wanted to just circle back about your experience and what happened with Matthew, because he is so young, and if you're willing to just talk to me a little bit more about him. I have two sons. He was my youngest and he was very extroverted. He was always the kid in the neighborhood. He had four core friends,

and they were at my house every night. Every night. I used to, after five days, I'm like, just get out. I can't afford to feed five teenage boys every night. But they're always there because they love Matthew so much. He was just a sweet kid. And he was gay. He came out to me on his 16th birthday as being pansexual.

Me and his brother were both like, sweetie, since the moment you could speak, we knew you were gay. There was nothing wrong with it. It was fine. Did he come out to his friends? Yeah. They don't. He was applying to college. He wanted to become a lawyer. And he's like, well, I want to go to law school and I just want to become a public defender.

I'm like, oh, God, no. And I was like, that's what I want to do. I want to help people. And he was excited about it. So, that's kind of that's what his heart was like. I think it was a Tuesday night, and I was making a spicy chicken dish, and Matthew came to me and said he didn't feel like dinner.

His tummy didn't feel so good. I'm like, that's okay. He said, well, I'm going to go to bed. It was 8 o'clock. He's like, okay. And Michael and I got up to leave for work the next morning around 8. And I said to him, don't open your brother's door. He didn't feel good last night.

Yeah. And then we both got home at 5 o'clock last night. Yeah. And then I got, we both got home at five o'clock that night. And we're both the ones that found Matthew. Mm.

His body was very contorted and he was on his bed and he's ice cold. Oh shit. And I called the paramedics

when the cops came in. And they were there for four hours. They started taking photographs of all the rooms. I'm like, what's going on? He was just sick. You thought that he had died from being sick? Yeah, natural causes. I thought he had died from being sick? Yeah, natural causes.

I thought he had a stomach ache. And then when they left, I had to sign a release of everything they took out of his room. And then it was about four days later, the detective called me and she said he was on the suicide site. And as soon as she said that, all of a sudden, he was like, oh, fuck, no. So I was like, do you know about the site? He's like, I didn't know Matthew was on that.

He was aware of the suicide website. Very much. So, Megan and Gabriel, what can you say about this site that Matthew was on? So the site is called Sanctioned Suicide. It launched in 2018 after Reddit banned a suicide forum on its site, saying that members routinely shared methods and encouraged each other to harm themselves. So when that happened, two guys who were familiar with the forum decided that they were going to start their own independent

suicide website. And this was going to be a site where people could come and they could speak freely and openly and without fear of any kind of censorship. And over the next few years, as more and more people started making their way to the site, it became clear that the community that was attracted to this kind of open forum was vulnerable. I mean, we've read thousands and thousands of posts, and we have seen a lot of people describing histories of mental illness. It's also obvious that many of them are young. According to a survey the site conducted itself, almost half the users are under the age of 25.

Wow. And what do those people find when they arrive at this site? So, you know, I don't know where you feel comfortable starting to tell me about kind of how you first came to this site and what your experience was like. Yeah, so I... When we talked to people who have spent time there... It just comes up in search results and it's like on the first page it comes up. They said it was very easy to find. How did you feel about the way that the sort of site was constructed and did you feel? And it functions a lot like social media platforms.

Like Facebook there's a little notification bell at the top. You receive likes and hearts and other emojis depending on what you post on there. And a hierarchy, and you knew the members that were really popular and that were really active. People are ranked by the number of reactions they get. It felt slick. It felt moderated. I would just be on that site all the time. Constantly. I was so addicted to it. The site really draws people in. Oh, I was totally addicted.

But of course, this is not like any other platform. This is a website about suicide. And while there are some earnest conversations about hope and recovery, and people can find links to some resources to help, it's clear that the posts that are getting the most attention are the kinds of things that are very difficult to find anywhere else on the internet. It's not just people talking about wanting to die. It's people talking at great length about how they're going to do it and sharing step-by-step instructions.

And in the public forums, the live chats, and through private messaging, they often get advice and support as they make their plans. Wow. Now, when we talked with some of the foremost suicide experts in the country, they were just aghast that these types of conversations are happening and that they're happening on a site that's getting so much traffic. get through them, but that they're much more likely to go through with their plans if they learn about methods and become convinced it's the right thing to do, which is exactly what happens on this site. Take Sharon's son, Matthew. When he joined last December, one of the first things he did was to ask about a particular method.

He wrote in a post, so I'm new around here and have been eyeing the SN method. And what is that? So it's short for sodium nitrite. It's a preservative that's used to cure meat. It's available online, and some people have used it to kill themselves. And what is so insidious about this method, and the reason we're including it in our story at all,

is that many of the people we spoke with, parents, mental health professionals, medical examiners, even the police, had no idea it was being used in this way. Hmm. And at the same time, it's become the most discussed method on this website. So what happened after Matthew asked about this method?

Almost immediately, another member swooped in with a link to detailed instructions on how to use it to die. Over the next few weeks, we could see that Matthew went on to talk to other members about what music to listen to as he killed himself. He contemplated what would happen after he died. And by January of this year, less than a month after Matthew first signed on to the site,

post on the threads of two other members who were actually actively documenting their own suicide attempts using the same method Matthew was considering. He told one of them, good luck. Hmm. And that same afternoon, Matthew posted seeking specific advice because he said he wanted to make sure

that when he decided to kill himself, he would not fail. The very next night was the night that he told his mom that his stomach hurt. After that, he went up to his room, logged onto the site, and started his own thread. And, you know, I'm looking at the thread. He said, so ladies and gents, it's finally happening, you know, as if he was inviting people to a performance of some kind. And the members who were reading flooded him with emojis and other messages of support, letting him know, we're here, we're with you, we support you. And over the next 34 minutes, he essentially live-blogged his own death.

And these other members continued to respond to him every step of the way. At one point, Matthew wondered if the method was working and asked if he should keep going. And another member responded, if you want the attempt to be a success, then yes. And these exchanges went on until finally Matthew went silent. We've seen a lot of threads, like the one Matthew wrote that night. On the site, they are known as goodbye threads. And there have been over 500 members who have posted these types of messages and then never posted again. After everything that you have both just laid out, I'm struggling to understand how it's

possible that this website is still up and running. That's a good question. And it's one that we have heard a lot throughout the course of our reporting. The answer really begins with the two men behind the site. We'll be right back. So, Megan and Gabriel, tell me about these two men who created this site. That's actually taken us a long time to piece together. You know, they're known on the website by their usernames, Marquis and Sarge, but they've left very few clues about who they really are,

which obviously makes it difficult for them to be held accountable. So Megan and I set out to find them. And how exactly did you go about doing that? Well, pretty early on, we saw this 2019 BuzzFeed article that gave us a good place to start. It said that in addition to the suicide site, It said that in addition to the suicide site, Marquis and Sarge also ran several prominent websites for incels. And remind me what it means to be an incel. It's a term that means involuntary celibate.

And the people who call themselves this are generally men who believe that women will never have sex with them because of their looks and their social status. A lot of them express anger and sadness about this and believe that there's nothing they can do to change their circumstances. And so many in this community see suicide as a justifiable option. So what did you do once you found out that Marquis and Sarge ran several incel websites? Well, knowing that they ran these websites gave us a lot more leads. And when we started looking around the incel world we could see that they were pretty vocal members in that community again thank you for the introduction i managed the largest incel forum on the web and earlier this year sarge took part in an online panel discussion if people come to the forum uh insults.co, it is mainly because they want to be somewhere

where they won't be told, hey, hey, there is a way out. He appeared anonymously, just a black screen in his voice. If we are being honest, not everyone has a way out. And he was talking about his dark outlook on life. So the matter of sight, we try not to restrict what people talk about too much. Marquis made anonymous appearances too. People are going to seek out this stuff anyway. So we try to let people vent without interfering too much.

We try not to interfere with speech. I'm a defender of freedom of speech. He's even spoken directly about the suicide site and why he believes in it. I think many of the people that come to the site, they go out better than they came in, you know, kind of. And seeing that they had done all these interviews, Gabe and I started calling around

to see if the people they talked with knew who they were. But no one knew their true identities. They only knew Marquis and Sarge by their pseudonyms. And so we started digging into their websites and looking for paper trails. And everywhere we looked, there was intentional misdirection. Like, we kept seeing this name in connection to the site, Randy Thompson, who apparently lived in Illinois. But when we ran that down, there was no Randy Thompson in Illinois who was running these sites.

in Illinois who was running these sites. So for months, we kept digging and making calls. And we actually started to home in on a couple of names, but nothing certain. And then we got a pretty big break. And what was that? In September of this year, an internet company got hacked. And that hack made all kinds of new documents available to us.

And in those new documents, documents that Marquis and Sarge never expected to be made public, we found the names that we had been homing in on. And not just their names, like email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, directly tying them to the incel sites and to the suicide site. We even found a credit card invoice showing a payment for the suicide site. And once we had that, we were able to dig up court records, police reports. We amassed a lot of information. And it all pointed to two people.

LaMarcus Small and Diego Galante. So should we try the number in the records first? So, yeah, let's do that. We reached out to them. Hi, is this Diego? Hi, is this Diego? Hi, is this Diego? Who is this? Hi, Diego.

This is Megan, Tui, and Gabriel. According to records, Diego is 29 and lives with his parents in Uruguay. We've been doing some reporting on the Sanctioned Suicide website and would be the chance to ask you some questions and gather your perspective. I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry. Diego?

He denied knowing anything about the site. Diego? Diego, are you still there? Um. And is this LaMarcus? Uh, yeah. Hi, LaMarcus. When we called LaMarcus.

Hi, LaMarcus, my name is... When we called LaMarcus... Have you received any of the messages I've sent you over Twitter or through the sanctioned suicide website? I don't know what that website is, sir. He denied it, too. Okay. What I'm wondering is how you got my number, because that's kind of weird.

Right, you know, LaMarcus is 28 What I'm wondering is how you got my number, because that's kind of weird. Right. You know, LaMarcus is 28 and lives with his mom and brother in Alabama and was reluctant to answer even basic questions truthfully. Isn't that right? That's not my mother. You're saying those police records are raw. So. And he was clearly pretty rattled. After the story's released

and it has my damn name on it, I may not have anything. Is that your fear, Lamarcus? Well, I mean, y'all mentioned earlier that my name is going to be in the story. So

my life is ruined from there. I mean, and I haven't even done anything. I mean, I haven't even... At one point, he confirmed that the credit card number we found in the documents was his. But... Because I remember that card was used for some fraudulent transactions last year.

He suggested that it was possible the credit card information had been stolen. LaMarcus, the records have your email addresses, they have your credit card numbers, they have your addresses. These records go back years. He also suggested that it was possible his brother was behind the site.

He might be the one operating these websites, but I don't know. You think that that's the only explanation? That's the only logical explanation I can come up with right now if my cart wasn't used fraudulently. And those are really the only explanations that he offered. Are you saying it would be okay if we got back to you with any follow-up questions?

Yeah, you can follow me anytime. I mean, you got my number. Okay. Bye-bye. In the following days, we tried calling the brother, but he would not return our phone calls. We also tried calling LaMarcus back, and he didn't pick up. Eventually, his phone number was disconnected. Diego didn't call us back either, but he did respond in an email.

And in that email, he acknowledged posting on the site as Sarge. And he defended the site. He said that it helps people. But he denied being a founder or operator. So both Diego and Lamarcus are denying that they're the ones behind this site. Is there any chance that's true? In addition to the many documents we have linking the incel sites and the suicide site to these two men, we were also able to confirm that photographs we'd obtained of Diego and LaMarcus were in fact Sarge and Marquis. So we're confident that they are the ones behind the site. Well, does the fact that we now know their identities make it possible to hold them accountable?

You know, that's complicated, Michael. Even though Diego and LaMarcus run this site, they are not the ones who are posting suicide methods or step-by-step instructions or encouraging specific members to go through with their suicide plans. What they've built is a site where it's the users who are doing that. Right. And I think I know where this is headed because we've covered this on the show before, especially when it comes to big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter, who insist that they're just a platform and they can't be liable for what their users say. And the law kind of backs them up on this. There's this idea that if you run a website, you're not legally responsible for what your users say or do

when they're on the site. Essentially, yes. In most cases, that's how it works in the United States. So then, if it seems unlikely that Diego and LaMarcus are liable, what about the users themselves? Are any of them violating the law? Well, there is no federal law on this. So it really depends on where they live. Most states have laws that make assisting suicide a crime, but those laws are really inconsistent from state to state, and none of them explicitly address online activity. Some actually specify that it's

only a crime if there's some sort of physical assistance. So with this complicated patchwork of laws, it sounds like this site is basically untouchable. Well, outside the U.S., there has been some success in restricting the site. It is blocked in Australia. It's blocked in Italy. Germany has had some success removing it from search results. But here in the United States, you're right. Very little has been done about the site. And the parents of those who have died have been pleading for help. They've asked their local police to investigate, and the police have essentially refused to take any action.

They've gone to Congress to try to change the law that protects website operators, but that hasn't gone anywhere either. And that's left parents to make their pleas directly to the tech companies. Some have tried to get Google to remove the site from search results. What Google says is that they're not going to do that

because there's no law saying that they have to. So then what happens now after this investigation and everything that you two have uncovered? We're going to be watching very carefully to see what happens with the site now that this is all out there. Will law enforcement do anything? Is Congress going to act on this? Are tech companies going to do anything? Is Congress going to act on this? Are tech companies going to do anything?

That all remains to be seen. And look, for the last several years, we've all been talking about Facebook and Instagram and these other platforms and whether people are getting hurt when they spend time there. And if they are, who is responsible for that? Like, should the operators of these sites be held liable in any way?

And if there ever was a site where these questions were begging to be answered, it's this one. Because people aren't just getting hurt. They're killing themselves. I mean, until we fully grapple with some of these fundamental questions, we're going to continue to see websites like this one where teenagers, children, anybody has the opportunity to log on and learn how to die and get help along the way. Well, Megan and Gabriel, we appreciate your time.

Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Thanks for having us. I just, I've been through the grief process, and it's just, I'm so tired of talking to moms that their kids are dying. And they're so frustrated. Anytime I say anything about this to my friends, they're like, well, how are these sites still allowed? I'm like, I don't know. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, Pfizer and BioNTech said that preliminary blood tests showed that three doses alone, without a booster shot, may be insufficient to protect against the variant, given its unique mutations. That prompted American health officials to reiterate their call for all adults to get booster shots. Meanwhile, the Times reports that 200 million Americans, over 60% of the population, are now fully vaccinated. The U.S. crossed that milestone as the Omicron variant prompted a flurry of vaccinations in recent days.

Today's episode was produced by Austin Mitchell, Aastha Chaturvedi, and Rob Zipko. It was edited by Larissa Anderson and Liz O'Balin, contains original music by Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.