Government Launches ‘Pause Before You Post’ Campaign
Public Health Gibraltar has launched a new campaign encouraging people to think before sharing news of a sudden death on social media.
The “Pause Before You Post, Care Before You Share” campaign urges people to avoid sharing unconfirmed details or images online, and instead support families by sharing memories and allowing loved ones to be informed first.
A statement from the Government follows below:
Public Health Gibraltar has today launched a new public awareness campaign, 'Pause Before You Post, Care Before You Share', developed by the Suicide Prevention Alliance.
The campaign asks the public to stop and think before posting or sharing on social media when a sudden death is reported in Gibraltar.
Gibraltar is a small and close community, and news travels quickly. When a sudden death is reported, there is often an immediate outpouring of grief online. Public Health Gibraltar and the Alliance recognise that this comes from a place of genuine care and concern. It can, however, have consequences that were never intended.
Families have learned of a death through social media before their own relatives were able to reach them. Relatives who are abroad or out of contact are particularly affected. Re-posting social media content may trigger others with thoughts of suicide into acting.
The campaign has three main messages.
First, deaths by suspected suicide in Gibraltar are rare, and support is available for anyone who is struggling or who is worried about someone else.
Second, when a sudden death is reported, whether by the Royal Gibraltar Police or by members of the public, please pause before you post and care before you share. Please do not share footage, images or any description of how the person died.
Third, not every member of the family may yet know. Sharing details of how a person died can also place another vulnerable person at risk.
Where people do wish to post, the Alliance encourages them to share positive memories and recollections of the person: time spent together at school or at work, or on the beach, or anything that is comforting, fond and true. These are the posts that families and friends may return to later, and that can bring real comfort. The Alliance also encourages people to post on the social media pages of the funeral directors, so that family members are made aware of the death in an appropriate way.
The campaign has been developed by the Suicide Prevention Alliance in partnership with Walking Together, the charity that supports families and friends bereaved by suicide.
Further information about the Suicide Prevention Alliance and its work is available on the Public Health Gibraltar section of the GHA website.
Support is available
Anyone who needs to talk can contact GibSams free on 116 123, or through the online chat service at gibsams.gi.
Childline Gibraltar is available on 8008 for children and young people up to the age of 19, and for adults who are concerned about a child. Teenline is available on 8009 for young people aged 11 to 18.
The GHA can be contacted on 111. In an emergency, always call 999.
The Director of Public Health, Dr Helen Carter, said: "Every sudden death in Gibraltar is felt across the whole community, and the instinct to reach out online comes from a good place. What we are asking is simply for people to pause. Pause for the family who may not yet have been told and pause for the person reading who may be more vulnerable than you know. Sharing the detail of how someone has died carries a real risk to others, and there is strong evidence behind that. Post the memory. Post the photograph from the beach or from work but please leave out the detail of the death. That single change in habit protects families and it protects lives. Pause before you post. Care before you share."
The Minister for Health, Care and Business, the Hon Gemma Arias-Vasquez MP, said: "This campaign asks something small of each of us and it asks it at the hardest possible moment. When we hear that someone has died suddenly, our first instinct in Gibraltar is to reach for our phones, because that is the kind of community we are. Public Health Gibraltar and the Alliance are not asking anyone to stop caring, they are asking us to care in a way that protects the family who may not yet know, and that protects the next person who is struggling. I want to thank the Suicide Prevention Alliance and the Director of Public Health and her team for their work in this area throughout the year."
