A PROMISING 18-YEAR-OLD college student jumped to his death from a bridge in New York after discovering that his college roommate had been streaming videos of his homosexual encounters live on the internet.

Tyler Clementi, a gifted violinist, had asked his Rutgers University roommate Dharun Ravi to give him some alone time in their room. Leaving him alone, Ravi went down the corridor to the bedroom of another friend, Molly Wei, and there logged into the webcam in his own bedroom through Skype – where he saw Clementi having sex with another man.

He tweeted:

Roommate asked me for the room till midnight. I went to molly’s room and turned on my webcam and saw him making out with a dude. Yay.

When the same thing happened again two nights later, Ravi again tweeted his friends inviting them to contact him through the instant messaging program iChat – where users would have seen “his” video camera depicting Clementi having sex.

Having learned of his roommate’s actions, Clementi drove from Rutgers – an hour outside New York City – to the George Washington Bridge, posted a Facebook status update simply reading, “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry“, and leapt to his death.

The incident has brought the issue of college homophobia to the fore, with many LGBT outreach groups claiming the incident is a mere example of the ongoing struggle of gays to feel at ease about their sexuality. A number of Facebook memorial groups have sprung up since his death,

Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton – himself gay – told MTV News he was “just beyond sad – I’m crushed, and also compelled to acting by the recent rash of young people killing themselves because of gay bullying and being harassed in school because people might think that they’re gay.”

ABC News reports that Dharun had also tweeted, “Found out my roommate is gay,” in August shortly after they had met, and posted a link to an LGBT website where Clementi had discussed his sexuality.

Dharun and Wei are now each charged with two counts of invasion of privacy, and each could face up to five years in prison.