The stupidest Facebook group: I have to practise suicide.

Yes. It has to be the stupidest Facebook group ever. Rightly reflecting its shameful stupidity, the Facebook group called itself, "I have to practise suicide".

See, suicide is not something one can practise. What for? To make the suicide a perfect one?

There's no such thing like a perfect suicide. It's either a successful one or a botched-up one.

Police in Hong Kong were on Thursday trying to trace the founder of a Chinese-language Facebook group whose members claim to be planning a mass suicide on December 21.

The investigation was triggered after a 15-year-old member of the group was stopped by friends as she tried to throw herself off the roof of a Hong Kong school a fortnight ago.

Police found she was one of 190 people who had signed up to the Facebook group called "I have to practise suicide." The group has been removed from the popular social networking site.

Members shared tips on the best ways to kill themselves and goaded each other to join in a mass suicide on December 21. A social worker who interviewed the suicidal schoolgirl alerted police.

Some reports in Chinese-language newspapers on Wednesday said the group had been disbanded while others quoted members saying that a core "suicide team" remained active.

Headmasters from 35 schools have been contacted about the Facebook group and advised on how to monitor students for any signs that they may be involved, police said.

Youth suicide rates are notoriously high in the wealthy city of 7 million with experts saying the pressure to achieve good grades in school and emotionally detached parents are to blame.

Hong Kong's overall suicide rate has fallen markedly in recent years thanks to initiatives such as erecting suicide barriers on tall buildings and putting helpline labels on packets of charcoal.

Burning charcoal in a confined space to produce carbon monoxide is a common suicide method in Hong Kong.

From IOL, "Facebook group planning 'mass suicide'".

Hong Kong police are seeking the Internet user behind a Facebook group that encouraged teenagers to commit mass suicide, a report said Thursday, after a 15-year-old member tried to kill himself.

Nearly 190 people joined the group "I have to practise suicide," which called on members to take their own lives on December 21, the daily South China Morning Post reported.

However the site's unknown creator had also posted a message on the social networking site saying that the group was just an "inside joke," the Post said.

Members were supposed to talk about ways to die in a "retarded way," such as "jumping off a chair," the creator wrote, adding: "I'm not encouraging suicide. It's supposed to be an inside joke."

The site was removed from Facebook when local media reported the story.

Police launched their investigation after classmates stopped a teenage boy who belonged to the group from throwing himself off the roof of their school two weeks ago in Tin Shui Wai.

The working class neighbourhood in the city of seven million has been nicknamed "City of Sadness" because of its social and domestic violence problems.

Last year, a mother and her two young children died in a grisly murder-suicide in their Tin Shui Wai home.

From My Sinchew, "Hong Kong police track Facebook suicide group: report".



Update on 01/12: a second Facebook group with equally stupid name has appeared. "I have to (practise) suicide", it's called. HK police are hunting the creator now.

Hong Kong police said Friday they are hunting the creator of a second Facebook group encouraging teenagers to commit suicide.

A force spokeswoman said experts from its Commercial Crime Bureau were investigating a social networking group named "I have to (practise) suicide" after a page with an almost identical name was exposed earlier this week.

"We are now investigating the two cases. No one has been arrested so far," she told AFP.

The new group emerged on Wednesday and nearly 100 people signed up, according to media reports.

"What is the meaning of life...my beloved is in love with another...while everything adults do is right, what we do is all wrong...no one knows we exist, why don't we all commit suicide?" the group wrote on its site.

It was created after the media reported this week that another Facebook group -- "I have to practise suicide", with no brackets in the title -- had called on its 190 members to kill themselves on December 21, and was linked to an attempted suicide.

The South China Morning Post said Friday that the police had already traced the creator of "I have to practise suicide".

It cited police sources saying the culprit was a local teenager who set up the site for fun.

The group came to light after police launched an investigation into the case of a 15-year-old boy who tried to throw himself off the roof of his school two weeks ago. The boy was a member of the group.

From Yahoo! News, "Hong Kong police probe second Facebook suicide group".