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Ask.fm Suicides

hannah

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Ask.fm seems to be the root cause for quite a few adolescent kids to commit suicide. Another girl has committed suicide recently over it and her dad wants the site completely banned. However, I'm opposed to this.
On the site itself, it tells you what to do if you get abusive messages and that they can get law involved in certain cases. You also have the chance to deter bullies by setting your account to not allow any anonymous questions, meaning the bullying would almost completely stop. Oh, and you also have the opportunity to delete your account altogether. This is where I get confused. There are so many ways to avoid the bullying, but these kids just never do it and continue adding fuel to the fire, until it gets to them so much, they turn to suicide.
I personally enjoy the site and I have more positive questions than negative (but when they get negative, they can get very abusive) but I brush it off and ignore them. In that case, I use the site wisely whereas these 14-16 year olds seem to be too naive to control it well. All they need to do is make some kind of minimum age limit and educate people on using the site wisely. They should be warned that if they can't take the odd abusive message every now and again, they shouldn't use the site. There's just so many things these kids could have done to stop it, the site even tells you how too and so many precautions that could be done so everyone can enjoy ask.fm more, instead of just banning it because of the odd teenager who can't handle it.

What do you think?
 
Although I agree with the minimum age of users overall, I think maybe forcing the 'no anonymous questions' for those under 16 would probably help, considering they won't bother to help themselves and do it. Despite the fact that people could create an account completely unsuited to them to do it, it would really have to be someone with a personal issue with them to go through that much effort, if they actually bothered - it requires a lot more effort than just ticking a box.
 
Ask.fm is the site where girls ask for anonymous opinions?
Already, it comes off as stupid.

Teenage girls become insecure about themselves from any source. Give an idiot the prospect of mocking her with no consequences? It's not going to work out.

Yes. I agree, Ask.fm is a silly site.
But why blame the provider for what the consumer is responsible for?
 
Yeah, that's a good idea though I think it should be for under 18's. There are still a lot of 16-17 year olds who can't handle things like this and some of the suicides were of 16 year olds. I do think the bullying would drastically stop if they stopped anonymous questions for under 18's. 18+ people are usually much more mature and are more focused on their future rather than bullying someone constantly online.
 
Ask.fm is the site where girls ask for anonymous opinions?
Already, it comes off as stupid.

Teenage girls become insecure about themselves from any source. Give an idiot the prospect of mocking her with no consequences? It's not going to work out.

Yes. I agree, Ask.fm is a silly site.
But why blame the provider for what the consumer is responsible for?

No, ask.fm is a large question site where people ask both male and female users questions about anything they want too, anonymously or not. But of course, people abuse the system and bully anonymously.

Exactly. The younger users should be more educated, it shouldn't be banned completely as it is fun for those who can use it wisely.
 
Banning a website over bullying is ridiculous.

You will never find a place on the internet that there aren't idiots/trolls/bullies. You may as well not bother going on the internet if you're under the illusion you can do that and not meet someone who'll try and bully you. If you are not prepared to deal with what you can find on the internet, do not enter. Same goes for parents, you have an issue with something on the internet? Don't let your kid on it/monitor their usage. It really isn't helping to sit there and say "WELL OUR KIDS SHOULD BE ABLE TO GO ON THE INTERNET AND THERE SHOULD BE NOTHING AND NO ONE THAT WE DON'T WANT THEM TO INTERACT WITH".

Bullshit. You will always find all sorts of people everywhere and if you're getting bullying on the Internet, log off, change your emails/passwords/usernames. Delete Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr. These things are not necessities.

To add, committing suicide over cyber bullying is a complete waste when so much could have been done and all I can say is that there were so many things she could have done to avoid it. I'm sick and tired of people saying "OH SHE WAS SO STRONG<3" No, she didn't help herself and despite needing to be strong to deal with that on your own, there's no need to. Too many people will now create her as some kind of glorified angel who put up with so much and died in such a way that she couldn't help.
Suicide isn't something that kids should even think is an option. It's a shame that someone that young would even contemplate throwing away their life over some stupid comments.
I contemplated committing suicide in my early teens but turned around and said you know what this thing really kills me and it's hard, but I stopped and thought about the stupid, selfish choice I could have made. I would have ruined my family's life, my life. I would have hurt people around me and I would have robbed myself of a long life just because of some idiots. THAT is something I will never ever condone. I understand, I've been there, but I won't ever sympathise for people like that because they're dead now and they don't have to be strong or deal with their problems, their problems are solved.

I feel sorry for the family, they're left feelings helpless as though it's their fault they couldn't save their daughter. That's how many families have claimed to feel, helpless because these kids don't even tell their parents or anyone. I didn't tell my parents or anyone, even now I don't talk about my past issues and I understand why someone wouldn't but then they say how they felt so alone and like they have nobody to talk to in their notes and videos and whatever else they leave behind. Their family must feel so guilty and for that, I am sorry.

Banning the website will do nothing. Kids need to be educated about the subject; it's okay to talk about these things. Don't be ashamed of your problems. I was ashamed of mine and that meant I was alone, nobody else was at fault. Suicide needs to be talked about with kids seriously, not a HUSH HUSH THAT MIGHT UPSET SOMEONE.

I don't think "aw poor girl she felt so alone and sad and bullied so she had to die". She didn't have to die, her family weren't abusing her, she isn't starving in a third world country and whilst this doesn't make her issues any less valuable I always feel that suicide in these situations are just too over the top.

I hope I didn't offend anyone, and I understand some of my views on it might seem heartless or harsh, but for gods sake we all get bullied, I got abused but I didn't let myself die, I don't see why anyone else should. Again, I'm sorry...I don't really want to debate and probably won't reply again, these things just get me quite upset.
 
Here's something offensive.

If being "bullied" on the internet is all it takes to make you kill yourself, the world isn't losing anything important. You'll forever be remembered as an idiot.
 
honestly, if people have to make themselves anonymous over the Internet when bullying others, they're just insecure ****es who should just **** themselves instead.

ask.fm is supposed to be a fun site where people ask others random answers. i've used it myself, but i deactivated the account after a while because no one even asked me anything.
 
Ask.fm is a stupid site but I have an account on it. I made it ages ago and it was boring and I never got hate.

The way I see it is that yes people can get advice, but it's another one of those social sites. If she was really having problems with the hate, she should have just deleted her account or even better, turned anon off so people logged in would only be able to ask her questions. My thoughts go to her family and stuff but yeah, she should have had help.
 
It is part of a mod or admins duty to moderate a website and protect the members.

If a website allows harm to its members then it does not deserve to exist, period.

ONE persons life is worth more all the websites on the planet.
Life is sacred and needs time to reach its full potential.

Suicide is always wrong in so many ways. to lose ones life over a trivial thing like a bad comment or two is wrong.

The loss of anyone's life is a very sad thing, the devastation and feelings of helplessness of the persons loved ones is hard to behold.

If the darkness surrounds someone and they feel depressed, then please reach out to others, there is ALWAYS hope.

As proved by the helpful and caring members on Confab-It, there ARE people who care and are willing to help.

If you feel depressed, then please just ask for help and I am sure it will willingly be given.
 
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To many websites are causing suicides, and these websites are at the front of the helm. People can sit behind their computers and hurls insults at others, it's just pathetic.
 
It's not actually the website that's the problem, it's the users.
Websites like that shouldn't be shut down, the users should fully understand how to use the security and law enforcement on the site. Ask.Fm has a page on internet safety that says..

If you receive a question that makes you uncomfortable for any reason, do not respond to the question, tell a parent, guardian or other trusted adult and block the user who sent it so they can't contact you again. If the person keeps bothering you, report abuse to us by pressing the Report button and to law enforcement.
... If you break the rules, you are responsible - and we can supply identifying information to law enforcement if necessary.
... You can turn off anonymous questions in your Privacy settings - this way nobody will be able to ask you anonymously and you'll have a better control over content you receive in your Inbox.

It really is that simple.
I understand that telling someone about bullying and whatnot can be difficult, but if kids who are being bullied on Ask.fm really find it that hard to talk about, there's always the logout button.
 
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Everyone was whining about this and I really didn't give a ****.

Ask.fm is a pointless website and it's pretty much dead, just like that Hannah chick. Who cares? People kill themselves all the time and nothing has changed. The government/parents or whatever should have woken up after the first not the 5000th.
 
Apparently she sent herself them messages? Weird... But if anything gets out of hand i don't see why people don't just delete their accounts
 
I think I'm the only girl in my school that never made a stupid fm account thing because I know how bad it can get.. and I knew I'd get hate comments and no nice comments anyway so what's the point? I think it's stupid and people who get hurt by it.. well.. it's their on fault. What did they expect? But I do feel sorry for people who commit suicide over it, no one deserves to die over cyber-bullies. I hope there is a stop to this one day. The thing I was most shocked at was that she 'apparently' sent most of the messages to herself? Maybe she wasn't right in the head in the first place but no one deserves to die, no matter if you've made mistakes. My prayers are with her family and friends, I can't imagine what they are going through. Lets hope that the people that actually DID send those messages get whats coming to them. Yeah, back on topic.. I don't like it. Girls my age are so stupid, I sometimes feel too mature for my age. They can dish it out but can't take it.. ughh.
 
It's so simple to just completely remove a website like Ask.FM from your life, or use procedures to avoid the petty and abusive behaviour.
Something that I'll always question about a large portion of humanity is: It's so easy, so why don't you do it?

People tend to try and find the easy way of doing things in life, yet when it comes to basic online 'commodities' the simple thing is apparently never that simple.
 
I think our generation is becoming weaker and weaker by the day.
 
I never understand why people don't just delete their accounts when they start getting abuse on websites? It takes a few seconds and saves them from any more hurt.

Giving people the power of being anonymous will often result in them saying what they think as they believe there are no consequences to it. Every time I go on a girls ask.fm there are always comments like '****ing ugly ****' and I just have to wonder why they sign up for the site in the first place, and also why they feel the need to reply to these people.

Also, making it an 18+ website wouldn't make any difference because lets face it - who hasn't lied about their age when signing up to things when they were younger?
 
I'm not sure if anybody has made this point but the girl who committed suicide recently over this site had all of her questions tracked down to the IP addresses that they were sent from. It was found out that she had in fact sent 98% of these hateful messages to herself. Meanwhile only 4 messages were sent by other users.

I myself am a ask.fm user and it shouldn't be banned. If a person can't put up with abuse on the website the sensible thing to do is to deactivate your account. I occasionally get abuse on mine but the bottom line is that it really doesn't bother me what some anonymous person has to say about me.

The site should do more to protect its users I agree, lots of younger teenagers use the site after all. However as well as this abuse lots of people are able to get advice through the numerous 'Help Pages' on there. For many others it's a site to have a laugh with mates and get to know more people. Ask.fm can do more to regulate the site safely but surely common sense should dictate that if someone is getting abuse they should block the person or deactivate their account.
 
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