ASK.FM

[russell]

4 Teenagers committed suicide from this site. Why? Why is this site so bad? What makes someone troll to get another to take their life? Thoughts dudes.. What can i say to kids to actually help protect them realistically, rather than ' dont go on the internet?'

 

[old.Tohtori]

Just tell 'em kids that they shouldn't listen to other people, other then that if a kid is suicidal then no mere words will help and they'd kick off no matter what. Milk gone bad? Time to kill myself.

Blaming the site? Ridicilous.

 

[Gwadien]

I read somewhere that the girl who committed suicide in Leicester made some of the posts herself to herself, according to ask.fm - Stuff like this has been around for ages I remember 3-4 years ago it was a different website doing the exact same thing, it's silly to blame that sorta stuff, people are going to get bullied regardless if it's online or at school.

It's a bit like saying a school is a source of bullying, so we shut the school down.

 

[Aoami]

TROLLS

 

[caLLous]

The first thing I would say is to not start a sentence with a number in number form.

And I have no idea about ask.fm. I guess it's dangerous because you can ask questions (they obviously don't have to be questions you can write whatever you want it's not like it checks for question marks) anonymously but still...

 

[ECA]

Unsupervised internet access for teenagers ? Wow that sounds like a GREAT IDEA.
Kids are fucking assholes, kids with anonymity on the internet? TOTAL FUCKING ASSHOLES.

Blaming anything other than the bullies parents and the victims parents is just playing blame games.

 

[Raven]

Idiots will be idiots.

 

[ECA]

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Tech/article1298958.ece

Ask.fm is saying she made fake accounts and sent the hatemail to herself.

 

[Moriath]

However much they don't want to take responsibility it's the parents that are to blame. There's plenty that limit / supervise the kids access. And taking it off them and getting them a non smart hone are totally acceptable things to do to a teenager.

Any forums that have kids on are gonna throw shit like that around. As eca says. All you can say to them is to not take anything said on those sites seriously.

If they are then they need to be removed from the site as your never gonna control trolls.

 

[soze]

This site seems to be really bad because you can post anonymously. So it really feds the small people who can only get thrills by slagging people off on line. And as people are not held accountable for what they say there is some truly horrible things posted. But as it is a more mainstream site than somewhere like 4chan you get "innocents" on there.

 

[Moriath]

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Tech/article1298958.ece

Ask.fm is saying she made fake accounts and sent the hatemail to herself.

Prob her sister lol

 

[Raven]

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Tech/article1298958.ece

Ask.fm is saying she made fake accounts and sent the hatemail to herself.

well, that's awkward.

 

[Raven]

This site seems to be really bad because you can post anonymously. So it really feds the small people who can only get thrills by slagging people off on line. And as people are not held accountable for what they say there is some truly horrible things posted. But as it is a more mainstream site than somewhere like 4chan you get "innocents" on there.

You can post anonymously on Facebook too.

 

[Scouse]

You can't be "bullied" on the internet. There's an ignore button, or you can remake your account as someone else.

Bullying is something you've nowhere to escape from.

 

[Raven]

Attention seekers don't like to remake profiles though.

 

[Cadelin]

I say its just bandwagon jumping. It makes a good story at the moment. In the same way Wonga is always mentioned when people talk about pay day loan companies.

According to this:
http://www.samaritans.org/sites/def...Samaritans Suicide Statistics Report 2013.pdf
there were 60 suicides by females between the age of 15 - 19 in 2011. I can't find accurate numbers for ask.fm because it claims to be growing users by 200 000 per day. However given that teenagers are very likely to be using social media then it would not be unreasonable to think several of the people that will commit suicide this year will use the site.

 

[Mabs]

freddyshouse clearly has some catching up to do

 

[Exioce]

Q: I'm a lv50 infiltrator but didn't spec for Dragonfang, what should I do?
A: Just kill yourself now.

That sort of banter is bread and butter on online forums. Possibly a bit harsh for unsupervised children though.

 

[soze]

You can post anonymously on Facebook too.

Yes you can create multiple email addresses and register for multiple Facebook accounts but you don't have to do that on Ask FM.

 

[BloodOmen]

Trolls. Simply other children or at the worse case very very immature adults doing nothing but singling out the most vulnerable looking teen or someone they're jealous of for whatever the reason then launching a campaign of utter hatred... its a sad state of affairs really and it makes you wonder what the moderators are doing, given the amount of suicides you would think the moderators would have key words/phrases that send alerts to moderators like "kill yourself" or "ugly fuck" etc etc because its the exact sort of messages that are making teens feel so bad.

The most recent one (Hannah Smith) ASK.FM had the cheek to say "She sent most of the hate to herself"

 

[caLLous]

You can post anonymously on Facebook too.

Well, I would suggest that facebook has much better (it's still lacking) privacy controls than ask.fm. I've not used it (I've asked but not been asked) so I don't know if you can say that you don't want anonymous questions. I assume (hope) you can tick a box somewhere.

Small people will be small people though, I have the son of a friend as a friend on facebook, he's 13 and has over 3000 "friends". So the controls can be there but whether or not they are used is another matter entirely.

 

[Kryten]

This site has been questioned many a time in the educational sector where I work, and for good reason. However, many people are quick to say OMGZ SHUT IT DOWN! which is a terrible knee-jerk reaction typical of Daily Mail readers in this day and age. They don't have particularly good controls and measures at that site but there's 101 other sites which will happily take over should one find its way into the internet's abyss. Regardless, most local authorities and internet filtering systems already block ask.fm and similar sites. What happens at home though boils down to parents taking "reasonable measures" - there's only so much they can do. This girl was 15, so not really that young and had a mind of her own. A 15 year old will certainly be able to bypass a majority of "netnanny" type setups with a couple of minutes on google. So, try as they might, reasonable measures are all that can be taken.
There's far worse sites than ask.fm, but in this case it's sad to say that it's not really the site that should be questioned. It's a terrible shame, and it would appear to us, as bystanders, that there was something else on this girl's mind. I suspect the ask.fm has only come into it again due to the kneejerk reaction issue. For all any of us know, including her poor parents, she could have had underlying issues that she's spent so long hiding that have finally just brimmed over.

 

[Tom]

Blaming one website for several suicides is stupid, Daily Mail-esque bollocks. Suicide is a complicated business, just because one site was involved doesn't make it a causal factor.

 

[Job]

Its like cb radio all over again..now that was proper anonymous...unless they sent out a fleet of tracking vans.

 

[Scouse]

freddyshouse clearly has some catching up to do

Why? You can't turn a real-life bullying classmate off - but you can stick his internet persona on "ignore" very easily.

Trolls. Simply other children or at the worse case very very immature adults doing nothing but singling out the most vulnerable looking teen or someone they're jealous of for whatever the reason then launching a campaign of utter hatred - which can be countered by closing down your browser

Fixed

 

[Aada]

People saying bad parents etc, she was 15 years old for crying out loud she wasn't a 7 year old kid she was approaching being a young woman, what were the parents to do? lock her in her room with no phone/laptop basically anything that could browse the net that's a lot of gadgets these days in a house.

She should have spoken to her parents about it or at least deleted her account, hanging herself, you gotta have some balls to put the noose round your neck and let go.

 

[Raven]

She didnt hang herself over it by the sounds of it. She made most of it up according to their IP records.

Attention seeking exorcise gone bad.

 

[Moriath]

People saying bad parents etc, she was 15 years old for crying out loud she wasn't a 7 year old kid she was approaching being a young woman, what were the parents to do? lock her in her room with no phone/laptop basically anything that could browse the net that's a lot of gadgets these days in a house.

She should have spoken to her parents about it or at least deleted her account, hanging herself, you gotta have some balls to put the noose round your neck and let go.

14 not 15 iirc. And yes they can do that.

 

[rynnor]

Teenage life is rough - a certain tiny percentage of kids will kill themselves - probably not avoidable tbh.

Teenage is about leaving behind the comfortable fluffiness of childhood and beginning to see the real world - some kids just won't be able to handle that - unless the world changes drastically it will ever be thus.

Singling out and blaming something are coping mechanisms of grieving parents - it makes good copy but is more about exorcising their own misplaced guilt than logic.

 

[BloodOmen]

Why? You can't turn a real-life bullying classmate off - but you can stick his internet persona on "ignore" very easily.



Fixed

WHAT AN AMAZING SOLUTION SCOUSE! AND TO THINK NO ONE HAD THOUGHT OF SIMPLY CLOSING THEIR BROWSERS EARLIER..... way ahead of your times.