Social network Ask.fm has committed to a series of measures designed to deal with cyber-bullying following an internal audit of its moderation practices. The news comes after a third teenager linked to its service committed suicide.
Fourteen-year-old Hannah Smith was found dead on 2 August by family members after using the social network. Smith is the third young person whose death has been linked to activity on the Latvia-based website. Erin Gallagher from Co Donegal and Ciara Pugsley from Co Leitrim both took their lives after falling victim to sustained abuse on the service. Ask.fm is helping Gardai in its Irish investigations by providing the IP addresses of computers believed to have been used in both cases.
As part of its new measures, Ask.fm has pledged to introduce a ‘report’ button to make it easier to flag bullying; incentives for users to register that give access to expanded features while logging users’ identities and IP address; an expanded moderation team; and the creation of an information resource for parents explaining what the service does and how it works. All changes are expected to be in place by Spring 2014.
Ask.fm invites users to ask each other questions anonymously. The website has been criticised for not protecting the welfare of users by allowing ‘trolls’ verbally abuse its members.
The English arms of Specsavers, Vodafone, Laura Ashley and charity Save the Children all pulled adverts from earlier this month.
Launched in 2010 by brothers Ilja and Mark Terebin, Ask.fm currently has 65 million users and is growing at a rate of 300,000 a month.
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