April 5, 2009

Did Demi Moore and Twitter Help Save the Life of A Suicidal Woman?

Actress Demi Moore has been credited with helping to save the life of a suicidal woman by using Twitter, the online microblogging service, according to the Guardian of London.

On Friday morning, an unidentified Californian woman broadcast a message on Twitter, saying that she planned to kill herself and detailing the methods she would use. Moore rebroadcast the tweet to her 350,000 followers. Twitter users found through the woman’s profile that she lived in Silicon Valley area, and began to contact police to warn them of what was happening.

San Jose police received the reports of a woman intending to harm herself. They found the woman unharmed and took her into custody for evaluation.

The Department’s Public Information Officer Jermaine Thomas, quoted on ABCNews.com, lauded the social-networking site: “This Twitter concept is so new, this is the first time it's led us to what could have been a very real crime.”

Moore said she did not know the woman, but, said the incident was a "prime example of the power of collective consciousness"

No comments: