Ronald Merle McNutt (May 23, 1987 – August 31, 2020) was a 33-year-old American man and US Army Reserve veteran from New Albany, Mississippi, who died from suicide by shooting himself under his chin on a Facebook livestream.
The case became notable for the callous attitude expressed towards McNutt’s death by some Internet users, as well as Facebook's slow response to the video, which had been shared to numerous other social media platforms and amassed a large view count before finally being taken down.
[2] The incident has raised awareness about both suicide prevention and what duty of care social media platforms owe to users and victims when it comes to moderation of graphically violent content.
He had a variety of mental health problems, such as depression as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the latter of which was a direct consequence of his time served in the Iraq War in 2007 and 2008.
[5] In addition to this, he was also dealing with a recent break-up with his girlfriend; some reports also said that he lost his job during the COVID-19 pandemic, though Rolling Stone disputed this.
After she ended the call, McNutt took hold of the gun and addressed the audience for the final time, saying his last words, "Hey guys, I guess that's it."
Variants of the video appeared in TikTok's "For You" page, so that users would scroll upon it without warning as the suicide automatically played, with the apparent intention of frightening or upsetting viewers as a form of trolling.
[2][16][17][18] Many parents reported that their children were highly distressed after encountering the video, with one girl becoming physically ill and needing to sleep with the lights on.
"[3] Theo Bertram, TikTok's European director of public policy, stated that "a coordinated raid from the dark web" was responsible for ongoing circulation of the video.
[25][26] TikTok released a public statement saying, "Our systems have been automatically detecting and flagging these clips for violating our policies against content that displays, praises, glorifies, or promotes suicide.
We appreciate our community members who've reported content and warned others against watching, engaging or sharing such videos on any platform, out of respect for the person and their family."