In an announcement made on Tuesday, social network Facebook said that it is incorporate suicide prevention tools into its platform across the world, to enable users to flag posts as potential self-harm notes. Till now, suicide prevention tools were available only to some English-speaking Facebook users.

Facebook’s move to expand the availability of suicide prevention tools to all users worldwide means that the users of the social network will now be able to benefit from the mechanisms and processes which enable them to help to friends who post messages about suicide or self-harm.

The availability of suicide prevention tools will basically give Facebook users the ability to flag friends’ posts which they deem suicidal.

The potential self-harm notes posted by Facebook users contemplating suicide – and flagged by their friends to raise a concern – will be reviewed by a Facebook team which will then provide language to communicate with the user who is at risk, along the details on suicide prevention.

With Facebook already working with several mental health groups – like Forefront, Lifeline and SAVE.org – to prevent suicides, Facebook’s global head of safety Antigone Davis and the company’s researcher Jennifer Guadagno said in a recent post: "Now, with the help of these new tools, if someone posts something on Facebook that makes you concerned about their well-being, you can reach out to them directly -- and you also can also report the post to us."