Of Social Networks and Suicide Nets: Biopolitics and the Suicide Screen

Abstract

This article analyzes how the Silicon Valley ethos has influenced the development of screening technologies designed to enforce survival. Although various technologies have been used to ensure the survival of clumsy, sick, depressed, or unpredictable subjects, this article focuses on recent developments in suicide screens—that is, those screening technologies that detect suicidal subjects and aim to prevent acts of suicide. Digital versions of these screens have also emerged: the U.S. military, in particular, has begun developing software designed to analyze returning veterans’ social media posts for hints of suicidal tendencies. Meanwhile, Foxconn, the Asian super-manufacturer that assembles products for Silicon Valley giants like Apple and HP, notoriously developed a network of “suicide nets” designed to prevent its miserable workers from jumping to their deaths. In Foucaultian parlance, while the state and its allies routinely “let die,” suicide threatens the state’s sovereignty over life by introducing a rupture of political intelligibility whereby a community can come to realize its basic biopolitical autonomy.