[12]: 285 Journalists Megan Twohey and Gabriel Dance of The New York Times reportedly discovered the full names of the site founders during the October 2021 data breach of Epik.

[1] Following the breach, Twohey and Dance obtained photos of Galante and Small that matched previous appearances of their pseudonymous identities Serge and Marquis.

[1] When contacted by The New York Times, Small stated that he had no involvement with the website, suggested his brother may run the site, and denied his mother's name reportedly listed on police records.

[1] Galante acknowledged using the pseudonym Serge on the forum but denied founding or operating it,[3] contradicting records on the site which described him as a co-founder and administrator of the website.

[1] After the two co-founders were named by The New York Times, Galante and Small announced their resignations as administrators, writing that they handed the forum over to a member going by the username RainAndSadness.

[3] In an interview with the Poynter Institute, Twohey stated that the decision to name the website and the suicide methods promoted by the site were "two of the biggest ethical issues that we had ever dealt with".

[21] An April 2023 study published by the Association for Computing Machinery found that most new users were active only in the first few weeks after making their accounts and their first posts were more likely to be about suicide and methods.

[2] While the site includes links to suicide hotlines and other mental health resources, Small noted that registrants who only sought the recovery forum would be unlikely to be approved.

[1] An investigation by the Australian ABC News noted that members have responded to attempts to direct people to hotlines or other supports with antagonism and accusations of being "pro-life".

[4][23] A PBS overview of the New York Times investigation specifically focuses on a male minor who was encouraged on the site to take his own life via the meat preservative sodium nitrite.

[5] Multiple parents of children who died by suicide after spending time on the site have publicly called on the forum to shut down,[1] including a Facebook group with over 1,000 members.

[1] April Foreman, a psychologist on the executive board of the American Association of Suicidology, argued that rather than block the site, better systems of support for people with suicidal ideation need to be created.

[2] Following the October 2023 BBC News investigation, several British ISPs, including Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, BT and Virgin Media, announced that the site would be blocked on default safety controls.

[17] In response to reactions in the UK, Small made a post on the web forum Kiwi Farms stating that restricting access to the site or "harass[ing] me isn't going to solve the mental health crisis".