The principle failing here seems to be a lack of a prepared plan of action for such events, and confusion within the TikTok offices as to how specifically to respond.<p>When you are dealing with The Public and public activities, at scale and volume, you've got to be prepared for such actions.<p>This means not only detection (which functioned poorly), but response.<p>- Contact first responders and emergency services.<p>- Disable harmful, inappropriate, or disturbing content.<p>- A set of prepared communications for specific circumstances (and adapatable to others) such that you're <i>not</i> scrambling to put together language under a crisis situation.<p>It's worth noting that with networks such as Facebook and Google (the late unlamented G+, YouTube) having literally <i>billions</i> of users, simple actuarial statistics mean that <i>tens of thousands</i> of accounts are likely to represent deaths on any given day. Contingency planning simply <i>has</i> to account for more than puppies and rainbows.<p>During my own time on G+, at least two of the thousand of so people I followed closely, both within a relatively close circle, took their own lives. One was a complete shock, though he'd been acting somewhat oddly (purging activity and accounts, then restoring them) over preceding months. The other had made threats over the course of a year or so, including a previous instance in which I'd tried frantically to find a way to alert local authorities thousands of km away. The first time there was a intervention. The second, not. Thankfully, in both cases the evidence wasn't a stream, but silence.<p>I followed up as best I could with several Googlers at the time. There's frustratingly little which can be done, though some capabilities were offered.<p>TikTok's response here strikes me more as simply poor planning, and the <i>Intercept</i>'s criticisms perhaps unduly harsh. Though yes, forsight, planning, <i>drilling of those plans</i>, and an ever-so-slightly less self-serving slant to the response, would be preferred.<p><i>Requiescat in pace</i>, Dieter and Dawn.