For example, the charity BeatBullying is suggesting options like "clear information and advice on-screen for users who are being bullied, as well as a single, prominent and easy-to-use 'panic button'," Henley writes. Those options, however, would be pricey and require manpower. Moderating what gets on the site may be a more sensible route. To be fair, Ask.fm isn't generating these threats its users are. But that won't really stop teens from finding a new way to bully each other (they have figured out a way with each new form of social media).
So what's Ask.fm doing about it? Obviously, there are calls to shut the site down. Unfortunately, bullying seems unstoppable on social media platforms. After all, Ask.fm reportedly gains almost 300,000 new users daily and is available in 150 countries, including the United States. These suicides are tragic, no doubt, and they represent only a small number of the thousands of teens out there who may be getting threats. And The Guardian's John Henley says that the site is believed to be connected to a suicide of an American teen late last year: "Friends of Jessica Laney, a Florida teenager who hanged herself in her bedroom last December, have said they are convinced constant anonymous bullying on Ask.fm pushed her to it," he writes. Pretty gross, right? British papers are reporting that Smith's is the fifth teenage death in the nation since last September linked to the site. But "asking" can devolve into threats to "drink bleach" or "go get cancer," which The Telegraph reports are the kind of messages that 14-year-old Hannah Smith from Leicestershire got before she was found hanged on Friday. Anthony Weiner, used to flirt with women not named Huma Abedin).
But the two social networks are very different.Īsk.fm actually has a lot more in common (read: it's almost the same) with Formspring, a network that allowed people to "ask" (anonymously, if they wanted) anyone on the site anything (Formspring is what Carlos Danger, a.k.a.
The calls for a safer social network site aren't unique: see, for example, Twitter's problem with rape threats and the company's subsequent announcement of a "Report Abuse" button. Those suicides are behind multiple online petitions, each with thousands of signatures, and articles in The Guardian and The Telegraph about how to make the site safer - or even shut it down. But this success has a dark side Ask.fm has become an epicenter for teenage cyber-bullying and has already been linked to at least six teenage suicides. Īsk.fm, a worldwide social networking site where you say anything to anyone, has over 60 million users, 13.2 million of whom visit the site daily, making it one of the fastest-growing social networks in the world. This article is from the archive of our partner.
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