“We Do Not Condone Bullying” Ask.fm Breaks Silence After Site Is Linked To Another Teen Suicide

The founders of Ask.fm have spoken out in defense of the social networking website, in the aftermath of teenager Hannah Smith taking her own life, a direct result of being bullied on the site. 

Mark and Ilja Terebin, owners of the Latvian based website have released a statement stating the company are committed to providing a "safe environment" for their users.

The move comes after large companies including Vodafone, Phones 4u, Specsavers, Laura Ashley, DialAFlight and Universelook pulled their advertising campaigns due to "deep concerns over cyber bullying." Charitable companies, Mind and Save The Children, are also linked to the site.

Hannah took her own life after being exstensively cyber bullied.

Ask.fm, launched in June 2010, has a website and mobile app which allows users to create a profile and then invite friends (and strangers) to ask them questions. These questions can be asked anonymously if they so choose, and the majority of the time they always are.

Members can then promote and boost the number of questions posed to them on their Ask.fm profiles through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Answers can include photographs and videos, which appear both on their profiles and on a live feed of responses accessible to anyone with an Ask.fm account.

Unless you are a teenager, or the parent of one, you probably have never even heard of it.

14-year-old Hannah Smith was found by her 16-year-old sister Jo hanged in her bedroom in Lutterworth, Leicestershire. Her death was a direct result of being bullied and encouraged to kill herself on the site.

Hannah's father has made a plea that websites which can cause such harm to children, be banned.

"The people that run it should get done for manslaughter or murder because you try contacting them and they don't care,” he said.

"These websites should be got rid of, if nothing else they need to be regulated and they need to stop people from doing this."

Devastated: David Smith with daughter Jo.

In an open letter co-founder and CEO, Ilja Terebin expressed his “sincerest sympathies,” to the Smith family and highlighted “safety features” available to Ask.fm users.

The ‘in-question’ function allows users to report any question they find offensive, and has been in place since 2012.

"Our moderators also read and deal appropriately with every concern or report that is raised by a user; we remove content if we feel it infringes our terms of service," he added.

"Although it is possible to post anonymously to the site, we would like to reassure parents that in almost all cases it is possible for Ask.fm to identify users, through IP technology."

Hannah received anonymous messages that critised her image and repeatedly suggested she commit suicide.

The owners promise to continue to work with the appropriate organisations to safeguard against bullying on Ask.fm. “We would welcome the opportunity to align with the rest of industry and society in fighting it on a higher level.”

Adding, “We are proud of the phenomenal popularity of the social network we have created and strive every day to make it better and safer."