Internet divided over who to blame for teen's death over Snapchat stunt

Netizens are divided over who should bear the blame for the death of a teenager in Singapore, who died while attempting a Snapchat stunt.

Last Friday, 17-year-old Jonathan Chow wanted his friend to take a Snapchat video of him jumping over a fourth floor railing at a mall. He thought he would hop over the railing and land on a ledge by it.

The ledge appeared to be solid, but was instead made of plasterboard. When Chow landed on it, he tore through the flimsy material and plunged down four floors.

"He came up with the idea of doing the stunt. We both thought the ledge was made of concrete, but when he jumped [on it], he fell straight through," his 17-year-old friend Ruth, who was meant to be filming the video told news outlet TODAY.

(This surveillance video claims to show Chow jumping over the railing, as Ruth reacts in shock. It's shocking, and we will not embed it here.)

The ledge was protected by a glass railing that is 1.2m high.

"The [decorative structure] was wide enough to look like a passage way and there was no warning sign to tell people that it should not be walked on," Mr Chow, the teen's father, told The New Paper.

Some online agree with him.

The mall in Singapore in which the incident took place Credit: Sowersby/REX/Shutterstock

"To give an illusion that the [ledge] was concrete was a foolish thing... a sign should have been placed there lest people attempt to retrieve fallen items. A young life gone too soon," said one netizen on Facebook.

'Why did they design a ledge made of plasterboard resembling a concrete ledge?" another asked.

However, some think the mall shouldn't be blamed, and that jumping over the railing is unexpected behaviour.

"Don't blame the mall. A glass barrier of 1.2m was [there]... the fault lies entirely on the teen himself and nobody else," one user commented.

"The railing is good enough a deterrence message. The father should not blame the management," one netizen said.

"I fault the YOLO generation for this. He just wanted to one up the Russian model who [hung] off the top of a building," another added, referring to an incident in which a Russian model hung off the top of a building for an Instagram picture.

Earlier last year, an 18-year-old girl from Atlanta almost killed herself and left another driver with brain injuries when she hit his car at over 100mph while using Snapchat.