I recently read this article from Dailymail.co.uk on a website that I, along with many other people used to and still use today, called Ask.fm. This website allows people to ask questions or write statements to people anonymously. "On the site, you can anonymously ask questions of registered users, shrouding your own identity in hopes of getting the most honest answer with the least judgment."1 This is a quote that I got from Time Magazine when they interviewed the founders of Ask.fm. This shows the intended reason for the website was to get the most honest answer without any bias on who is asking or seeing it. The issue with the website is the anonymity aspect because the immature teenagers who use the website, feel that if they are anonymous, they can say whatever they want, even if it is hurtful, and receive no backlash. About 42% of people who use Ask.fm are under the age of 17 which results in a lot of highschoolers on the website and in those stages, could be very vulnerable to cyber attacks and shaming. The DailyMail article pointed out how 5 teenagers have killed themselves over things that they have received to their account. Many people say that its as easy as just shutting the computer screen or logging off, but those thoughts have already been put into the mind of these teenagers that someone, if not multiple people, are thinking this horrible thing about them. This honestly shows how teenagers can't have nice things and services like this because those few people who like to screw it up and ruin everything. One of the fathers of the teenagers who committed suicide, Dave Smith, has been begging the Prime Minister to ban ask.fm. Just some of the things said to his daughter were to 'drink bleach', 'get cancer' and 'go die'. One thing I would say about this cyberbullying is that it is happening all over the internet with the anonymous trolls and that no place would be safe from this type of torment, especially ones that offer this type of anonymity.
1 http://time.com/2923146/ask-fm-interview/
I think there are some precautions we can use to prevent cyber bullying. Ask.Fm should monitor what is being posted about other people. For example if a post sounds like a threat they can prevent the user from posting it. The issue with banning ask.fm is that some people really do care about what others say about them and the company does make a profit from running application.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that websites like Ask.Fm are trying to make money, but when people have committed suicide because of how their website runs, they should have already done something about it. From personal experience, I know that the anonymous part of it gave people power to send people hate through it and that they could get away with it. It isn't right that they website doesn't filter these comments and is making profit from that...
ReplyDeleteI agree! Websites no a days just make them to make money and they don't actually understand how these websites actually hurt people. I have been through, the entire bullying on ask.fm and honestly its not worth it. Cyber bullying isn't something that is funny and sometimes in the beginning it might be but people need to look at the aftermath and what it would be doing to other people. It gives the person doing it power and puts the other person down for awhile and marks an impact on peoples life.
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