A Study of Users with Suicidal Ideation on Sina Weibo

Suicide is a leading cause of death in China, and so suicide intervention on social media is an important issue in the field of public health. Sina Weibo (Weibo) is an emerging surveillance tool that may provide online assistance for users at the risk of suicide.

Keyword-based methods and supervised classifiers were employed to conduct this research. A control group was established to explore the differences between Weibo users with suicidal ideation (USI) and the general population.

A total of 114 USI were detected from 1 million active Weibo users. By studying the negative postings of these USI, disclosure of the reasons for their bad moods was the most common theme. The emotions of USI tend to be particularly down between 05:00 pm and midnight. Use of the first-person pronoun by Weibo USI is significantly frequent.

Our findings may help to identify individuals with suicidal ideation who are not identified by the traditional clinical approach. Consequently, detecting and helping individuals who may be at risk of committing suicide may become more efficient.