But it’s so much more fun to let them all leave and spend two years tracking them down with Facebook posts and tweets /s

I see what you’re saying, it’s just that I think it’s most likely that the people Googling suicide-related keywords are probably doing so because of suicidal ideation, so I think the logic behind the study holds. They could be looking up those topics for research or to help a friend or something, but in general, thinking excessively about death and/or suicide is associated with depression, so it seems likely that suicidal people would be doing the majority of that Googling. But that being said, there are definitely more precise means of researching this subject and I think it’s important to constantly be looking for better ways of approaching these questions

The normal amount of suicidal ideation is zero. Regardless of whether these people went on to try something, this is indicative of serious mental health consequences from damaging legislation.