SAVE LIVES.

Certain social media platforms allow easy access to content that glorifies and depicts self harm, suicide and eating disorders in an explicit and graphic manner. 

All you need to do is search a hashtag or enter a key word and suddenly, the content appears. Not just any content: photos that show a cut so deep you can see fat, a quote that says you have to be thin to be loved, a video of someone crying with pills in their mouth, a comment that says "I want to die too".

Do you feel comfortable knowing your siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins and children can view this content? 

These images, quotes, captions, comments and videos romanticise these behaviours and create a community of people - particularly young people - who think they need to suffer from these issues to be valid, noticed or loved, who feel excluded if they don't have one of these problems, who feel like this is the only way for them to express themselves, who feel like this is what they deserve, who feel like these troubles are the norm, who need help and feel stuck in a vicious cycle.  

I need your help to remove and ban content like this, content that idolises and reveres self harm, suicide and eating disorders. I am asking that social media giants: Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr ban content that glorifies these issues and instead offers support for those who are posting this damaging content.

I am not talking about the banning or removal of pro-recovery communities or content that raises awareness for these issues.

I have reported over 100 graphic or explicit images that endorse self harm, suicide or eating disorders and almost all of them "didn't violate community guidelines". This is because most reports like yours or mine are dealt with by bots who do not understand the gravity of problems like these and cannot recognise them. I am calling for social media platforms to have a dedicated team of people to deal with the reports and appropriately filter out damaging content, while redirecting those who post or share this content to a mental health website such as Papyrus or Samaritans. 

The promotion of these issues has already contributed to or ultimately lead to the suffering of many people and even death - for evidence, just look at the news.

My own experiences of self harm, an abusive relationship, suicidal thoughts, anxiety and anorexia are testament to the harmful nature of abusing these platforms and I am not alone in my experiences.

Let's put an end to this together. 

If this petition is unsuccessful, I will not stop fighting.

If you are on Instagram, please see my page: @ykumari_ where I post about this and other issues and join the #prohelpme campaign by using that hashtag to raise awareness of this petition.