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Brown was curious about how these followers found Swan, and many of them described “some sort of cosmic delivery.” ”They were putting this intention out to the universe, and Teal’s videos were sort of coming to them,” said Brown. But Swan had a more straightforward answer to this question. “She said she basically targets them, using basic SEO, and basic Google tags, so when people are searching things like ‘I want to kill myself,’ they find her videos.”
Teal Swan didn’t respond to VICE’s requests for comment, but I was able to get some answers from a Google representative on how they deal with suicide-related searches. The tech giant doesn’t allow autocomplete on searches that indicate self-harm, and serves a “results box” at the top with the phone numbers of trusted country-specific organizations. But with straight-up titles like “I Want to Kill Myself (What to Do If You’re Suicidal)” and “What to Do If You Feel Hopeless,” Swan’s videos aren’t hard to stumble across on YouTube’s search platform.
(Professor Janja) Lalich says she’s been hearing complaints about Swan for quite some time. “Mostly they’re from people who feel they’ve been exploited,” she said. “They want some kind of validation that they were right in feeling that way about their experiences.”
For more read here:
Yes, There Are Women-Led Cults
Meet Teal Swan, a YouTuber who proves selling salvation to desperate people is an equal opportunity racket
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