Ask.fm - One of the most dangerous social platforms

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Ask.fm – One of the most dangerous social platforms

Bodzás Szabolcs | 2022-11-11

Ask.fm is a social website where users can ask each other questions, even anonymously.

The Latvian-based site started on 16 July 2010 and quickly gained huge popularity. By 2013, it had 80 million registered users worldwide, mostly teenagers. Today, it has 215 million registered users and 11,000 questions are entered to the site every minute.

The main point of the platform is to allow users to ask questions with or without giving their names, who then often do not even realise that their answers are revealing intimate details of their private lives.

Users of ask.fm can ask questions anonymously (Photo: 123rf)

The dangers

The site not only allows users to ask specific questions, but also to send anonymous messages disguised as questions.

In many cases, this has led to online harassment, to the point where some teenagers have committed suicide. This is the reason why the Sun, Specsavers and BT Group, among others, have distanced themselves from the site.

Remember this!

We advise you, if you use this site, to do so very responsibly. Remember: all information once it goes online, stays online. And if you receive any abusive anonymous messages, do not respond to them, simply delete them.

If a user has a negative experience on the site, such as being a victim of abuse, they can report the problem to Ask.fm staff.