Many young Japanese take to Twitter to discuss suicidal thoughts, and at least nine fell prey to a mass murderer.
Osaka, Japan — Acting on a tipoff, Japanese police knocked on the one-bedroom apartment of Takahiro Shiraishi to inquire about the whereabouts of Aiko Tamura, who went missing a few days earlier in a suburb of Tokyo.
What the police found inside on October 31 was the habitat of a serial killer: a saw, rope, and dismembered body parts of nine people — including severed heads stored in cooler boxes.
Shiraishi — an unemployed 27-year old — had at one stage worked as a scout for female escorts. He lured the women to his apartment, all of whom he befriended on Twitter, with promises of suicide pacts.
The women, whose ages ranged from 15-25, had all expressed suicidal thoughts on the social media platform.
Over a period of three months beginning last August, Shiraishi poured over messages from female users who expressed their willingness to die.
Shiraishi was able to exploit the fact that in Japan social media services, especially Twitter, are a space to talk about suicide — a subject that is still largely taboo. Tell Twitter
Tatsuhito Hokujo — director of Befrienders Worldwide Osaka, a suicide prevention network — said people who call their hotline often feel isolated.
«They feel like they don’t have anyone to talk with about their problems.»
In such a situation, they might post «I want to die» on social media and look for someone who can sympathise and react to their intentions, Hokujo told Al Jazeera.
It was posts such as these that Shiraishi reacted to, encouraging and coaching his victims before killing them and, in some cases, sexually assaulting them.
Vickie Skorji, director of Lifeline, which is operated by Tell Japan — a suicide prevention network, said because social media is wide open it’s also open to abuse.
«The very thing that’s connecting them [users] with people is also the very thing that’s putting them at risk,» she said.
