Facebook adds Samaritans suicide risk alert system (opens in new tab)

So far it hasn't been at all, that was the point of the test:

"The system had been operating in a trial mode, without publicity for three months, during which it received several genuine reports and no hoaxes, according to Samaritans."

Doesn't sound too bad.

It will be abused anyways, this is the Internet. Facebook could simply log IP (as if they don't already) and report the trolls.

It should be fairly difficult to abuse, since you need to link to the suicidal post in the contact form. I assume a human at Facebook will look at it before sending in the SWAT team.

No, really. There were three FB stories on the front page when I wrote that.

The first thing you see on the help page is a list of places to contact that are external / not related to Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=15538.

Very funny. It's referring to a charity, of course, which is extremely well known in the UK (and in Ireland, if Wikipedia is to be believed). Here is the correct Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritans_(charity)

The charity is most well known for the phone line that it runs, staffed by volunteers, that anyone can call if they are feeling suicidal or just desperate and need someone to talk to. An ex girlfriend of mine worked as a Samaritans volunteer for a short while. She said that it was very hard work (manning the phones all night and dealing with a fair few prank/abusive callers) and also extremely worthwhile and rewarding.