Please Sign - Close AskFM Down (If you agree)

[TomCollins]

I believe shutting the site down will not help anything as it will only take another person to notice it has shut down and open another one. As a 17 year old, I see bullying on Ask.fm far too often, whether it has been reposted to Facebook or Twitter. I think what needs to be built on is to educate children on what to do when they receive such abuse, such as BeatBullying (formally CyberMentors, for which I am a CyberMentor) [http://www.beatbullying.org] or similar services. I know this does not solve the issue of bullying, but it can help with the consequences, and I believe this should be taught in PSHE/Citizenship lessons, as bullying is not what it used be, it is now online, and people of my age group and younger should know what to do when they are met with cyberbullying.

[Ephelyon]

So maybe, as I said, changing it rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater would be a good approach.

 

Having said that, I must admit I can't see any great utility to websites like ask.fm (considering everything else that's out there), but then again people said the same thing about Twitter versus Facebook, so I'm sure there's some benefit. As long as we can take steps to make it a little safer.

[synaesthesia]

Absolutely. The same can be said of a large amount of the internet, and large communities actively thrive on pointless dribble (see reddit/4chan). Of course there's reasons for everything, but there's always a human involved and whatever the medium, it's the humans that need tending to, not the medium.

[Theblacksheep]

Absolutely. The same can be said of a large amount of the internet, and large communities actively thrive on pointless dribble (see reddit/4chan). Of course there's reasons for everything, but there's always a human involved and whatever the medium, it's the humans that need tending to, not the medium.

 

Totally agree.

 

There's places I dont go in real life, because I'll get in trouble.

 

There's places I dont go on teh interwebz for the exact same reason.

 

The internet is not for children. Parents need to understand this.

Edited August 11, 2013 by Theblacksheep

[mthomas08]

My view and it is only my view with my life experience.

 

I believe schools should block access to these sites like I have done at both of my jobs. There has been incidents that have caused serious problems and I won't go in to detail. Those children were protected by the filtering setup. The parents pre filtering had complained and if those serious matters occurred before the filtering then jobs could have been lost because those students would have been doing it on site.

 

Training only goes so far because there are parents who do not care or think it will not happen to them. Do you allow any random stranger to walk on site ? Is that safe? There is a difference between locking children in cages protecting them and allowing to go out late alone in the worst possible areas. As for teaching the students again that only goes so far they are kids they still add their enemies on Facebook etc so they know what's being said about them. That is the same excuse from every student I have had in my office when a teacher wanted to do some checking.

 

At the end of the day there will be those students who try and bypass but you would have protected many more students who accepted the filtering.

 

 

Ask your self this. How would you feel if those students going through some serious harsh times went through that AT YOUR SCHOOL. I think it's far too easy to wash responsibility and leave things open. Sooner or later the press and the government will get involved when a young child has something serious happen at a school. Are you prepared if it happens to you ?

 

Frankly I would rather safe guard the school and the children. If adults can't use these sites properly then what hope do children have.

[synaesthesia]

True indeed. It's rather unfortunate that the majority of this will be happening via a technology out of our control; smartphones.

[NikChillin]

I think that major advertisers pulling out will have far more effect than a petition, there was formspring me before that site and there will be others. What needs to be done is to educate students to steer clear of these sites, if they can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Not wishing to sound flippant as these deaths are tragic. There are loads of unsavory sites on the internet and teenagers should be taught to evaluate their merit before using them.

[Geoff]

No not really, they will just take advertising money from less savoury industries (gambling, porn, etc). Besides, there are far worse places on the internet than ask.fm, for example 4chan. (NSFL) Edited August 12, 2013 by Geoff

[CAM]

Shutting the site down would be a disproportionate response to the problem. My own feed on Twitter has plenty of people having fun with Ask.fm and whilst the content isn't always safe for work, what someone chooses to reply to on their timeline is down to them. Ask.fm isn't forced upon you, if it is no longer fun to use then why use it? It's a human problem at the end of the day and whilst I'd certainly block it in school in a heartbeat, you can't force a technical solution outside of school grounds.

 

Ask.fm will merely be another casualty of recent hysterical screaming about filtering and social media. It won't end nicely.

 

On the note of the Daily Mail who want this "vile website shut down" do bear in mind this is the paper who went on an anti-troll campaign whilst simultaneously demanding that Stephen Fry unleash his Twitter followers against Russian arts groups due to the recent Sochi controversy (doesn't take much to realise that would just end in trolls joining in).