Aspies For Freedom

eeek!  :shock:

Why on earth would someone not take suicide threats seriously? that sickens me that some people do that.  The poster should have took note of others and took it seriously

That's a worrying thought  

What was the worse problem that he committed suicide or that he murdered other people before he did it?  

If he just wanted to kill himself would it have been different?  Should people have the right to suicide?  

People asking for help might get it.  Often we all know how really frustrating getting any help for AS has been.  Some might see suicide as a tragic end but others just see it as a very permanent solution to end their suffering.  

Some servers are legally bound to inform authorites of threats.  I guess the laws might be different in some countries.   Honestly,  I do not think that this forum should allow people to post up threats.

By threats I mean suicide threats or threats of violence towards other people that are graphic in their description such as "someone saying they are going to take a gun and shoot someone".  There is not much way of knowing if someone is joking or serious.  I think they should get a warning not to post up such materials and the post be deleted.  Some forums would ban people for making threats.

I have removed the comment as I think I misread/misinterpreted an earlier post. I still feel that the general 'rivalry' appears to be clouding judgements here somewhat.

I didn't.

Having found some older posts (on non-AS forums) of his, I'd be putting my money on the latter. He sounded like a rational, reasonable chap originally, a lad who was lonely and hurt from bullying.

On WP, he was far too incoherent (even in his demands) to be seen as genuinely 'manipulative', and referred to being depressed several times (presumably this is what caused admin to try and track him down using the White Pages). He also mentioned he had been giving medication (suggesting he was being treated - albeit unsuccessfully - for this depression and psychosis. One could even speculate that it might have been a reaction to an antipsychotic that set this episode off - such reactions have been known to happen in autistics).

Had he been a long-time member in a forum, and suddenly started writing the way he started out on WP, I am sure people would have noticed something was wrong. The problem of course is that going just by his posts on WP (right from the start) it was nigh on impossible to distinguish his posts form those of any average attention-seeker. (Bad spelling, incoherent, sensationalist etc.)

I never saw any posts where he was demanding free money, maybe they were deleted or in the "Members Only" section

That article was largely based on interviews with the owners of the site, only willfreund's quotes were taken from the forum AFAIK.

Probably explains why I couldn't find them then

I'm glad they emphasised that, especially the bit about knowing if someone is serious, and about people lying and exaggerating online.

Will Freund didn't exactly come across as a person whose posts made a great deal of sense or were particularly serious (YES he made suicide threats... but he very clearly claimed he was doing it to extrort money out of several websites - so do you believe it is a cry for help? Or a prank? Or a deranged way of making a quick buck? etc. etc.), and many things he posted contradicted each other. It's only because we know what he ended up doing that we know which bits he did mean and which he didn't.

Sorry forgot to change the quote tag!  :oops:

It is much easier to spot a person who is at risk when he is in your physical space. My support groups have had such people come and go for twelve years.  Several times, I have had to tell people that they need help beyond the group's capacity and refer them to professionals.

        It is a lot harder on-line to tell. But I think we will all be better off if we take any statement about potential self-destruction or harm to others seriously. It is not something to flame in response and it is not funny. We need to warn people who make such statements as well as those who provoke with insensitive responses. And we can refer them to real help.

         Another thing that could help is to ask people who register to provide an email address and phone number of somebody to contact if there is an emergency.

        Last thought:  Many have suggested that the wrongplanet people should have called the police. There is no gaurantee that the police would have responded. I know one family in which an aspie has been in violent situations eight times in nine years and the police or mental health people NEVER responded until the person forced them to.

      In the end, nobody at wrongplanet.net is responsible for the actions  of William Freund. He is solely responsible. If drugs influenced him, he took them.  We all need to remind people that most of us will never do something like this.

I'm glad they finally highlighted the fact that he posted on far more sites than just WP, and that on all of the other sites (other than the AS-related one) he got treated like dirt and ridiculed. (Before they made it look like "Hey he only went ot this one AS site and they didn't stop this horror" whereas in fact he was more explicit on other sites, including a gun forum)

     Thanks. Too bad the reporter didn't mention Dennis Debbault, who gave her the phone number for Michael J Carley of GRASP, who was quoted. Dennis works really hard to educate police departments on how to respond when we are involved in a situation.

                            Jerry Newport