Virtual Suicide
by Erin Ball
VICTORIA (CUP)—Virtual suicide,
the act of erasing the online
profile that an Internet user has
created, is becoming more common—
thanks in part to one site
that has raised facebook’s ire.
The site, www.seppukoo.com, was created by an art group
out of Italy, Les Liens Invisibles.
The name of the site refers to seppuku,
a form of Japanese ritual
suicide reserved for samurai.
While other sites help users
delete personal information from
many different social networking
websites, seppukoo specializes in
committing virtual suicide specifically
on facebook.
Once a user gives the site
their facebook username and
password, seppukoo will log in,
send online friends a message
with last words, and deactivate
the account. They also create a
memorial page for the virtual
deceased that will show up when
friends try to visit the deactivated
home page
The site cannot actually delete
a profile on facebook, and users
can simply log back in to reactivate
their account. Fully deleting
one’s profile is possible, but takes
much persistence on behalf of
the original user.
Last Dec., facebook threatened
legal action against seppukoo
in order to stop them from offering
their services to facebook
users. Facebook has also blocked
users from typing the words “seppukoo.
com” into their status updates.
Some Internet users have used
seppukoo and other sites such as
suicidemachine.org to commit
virtual suicide as a form of social
activism. Some users believe that
the distracting nature of the Internet
is preventing them from
having an authentic life.
Dave Sawchuk, a former facebook
user and Victoria, B.C.
resident, is one of those people.
He has taken it upon himself to
delete his facebook account. “I
deleted facebook because I found
myself wasting my time on it,”
says Sawchuck. “I also didn’t feel
it was an accurate depiction my
life.”
Other users are concerned
about corporations having access
to personal information posted
online. If users choose to share
their information with everyone
on facebook, it can be considered
public information and thirdparty
businesses can use it for
targeted advertising.
“Many feel the world is sliding
towards techno-fascism, and
sites like facebook only escalate
people’s reluctance and genuine
fear of social media and pervasive
computing,” says Irwin Oostindie,
the executive director of W2
Culture and Media House, an independent
social media centre in
Vancouver.
Debbie Gascoyne, an English
instructor at Camosun College
in Victoria, is a social media user
and proponent. She says the use
of virtual suicide websites is ironic.
“People are using social media
to illustrate their disapproval
of social media,” says Gascoyne.
“It would be equally effective to
simply stop posting updates, or
to erase their account. Posting an
RIP (message) is, in a way, just
another update, isn’t it?”
Suicidemachine does the same
thing as seppukoo, but offers its
services for a wider variety of
social-media networks, including
Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn.
The site allows you to watch your
virtual suicide as it happens. As
with seppukoo, it is unable to
permanently delete facebook accounts.
As Sawchuk discovered, it’s
difficult to permanently delete a
facebook account, which is one
of the reasons why seppukoo
exists in the first place. “When
I first tried to delete my page,
I was told facebook doesn’t delete
pages, they just deactivate
them,” says Sawchuk. “Eventually,
I found a blog, or a howto,
on how to delete my page.
Even when I did everything
they asked, I still had to wait
two weeks until it was officially
deleted.”