Barons react to Ask.fm controversy

Story & photo by Kristie Hoang

Mimi Giang (’16) created an Ask.fm account hoping to chat with friends and answer interesting questions about herself, but it wasn’t long before she started to receive anonymous hate.

“I was shocked when I received the messages,” Mimi stated. “I thought, ‘What? There are people that think this of me?’ And it did make me more conscious of some of my behavior or actions.”

“But overall, the not-so-nice messages didn’t affect me much, since I didn’t get a lot of it,” Giang said. “Opinions are opinions, and you can’t please everybody.”

Founded in 2010 as a rival to Formspring, Ask.fm is a Latvian website that allows users submit questions to each other.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the number of Ask.Fm visitors increased from 3.7 million in June, to 6.3 million in July.

While some anonymous users ask silly or general questions, others are hurtful. Controversy over Ask. fm has been rising in the past year due to a string of teen suicides linked to the website.

Hannah Smith, 14, hanged herself last month after receiving comments on her Ask.fm account. Anonymous users told her to “drink bleach,” “go get cancer,” and “go die.”

After Smith’s suicide, the British Prime Minister has urged websites such as Ask.fm to “step up to the plate and show some responsibility.”

“More often than not, I find that [Ask.fm] is used as a channel for hate,” Benjamin Din (‘14) said. “And these are only the questions that the user chooses to respond to. Who knows what other horrible things are being sent through Ask.fm?”

Most students associated the website with cyber bullying. “It’s something for people to play around with,” Katrina Tran (‘16) said. “And people want to show their hatred or opinions anonymously to each other.”

Ask.fm has taken some measures to reduce bullying. With a new update, users can now opt out of receiving anonymous questions.

But teenagers continue to use the website despite the cyber bullying that occurs. “I personally think they do it for the attention,” Christine Phan (‘14) said. “The mindset of teenagers today seems to be that it’s better to be getting hate, because at least it means that you’re being thought of.”

Many Ask.fm users are aware that hurtful questions are sent through the site. “I believe that people make an Ask.fm so that they can be informed of others’ opinions of them, whether it’s good or bad,” Giang said. “The anonymous option is often used to encourage messages from users who otherwise would be too afraid, self conscious, or embarrassed to say in real life.”

For those who are receiving hurtful messages, Giang said, “If you’re receiving hate, just do yourself a favor and either disable the anonymous option, disable your account, and talk to somebody if it’s serious.

All those hurtful messages are from someone who isn’t bold enough to say it publicly with their name next to the message, so in my opinion, they’re not worth a second thought.”