

Ask.fm advertisers to quit site in cyber bullying row - k-mcgrady
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23612544

======
jblok
This whole debate centers on the fact that the website is at fault, and that
is something everyone has pretty much already decided. The father of the
victim has claimed the owners of ask.fm should be charged with murder, which
is just ridiculous.

Any website which promotes, glorifies, or encourages bullying should be
punished (definitely not with a charge of murder), but it would be fair game
for a boycott or loss of advertising revenue. Ask.fm does in fairness provide
a fairly easy platform for people to bully you, since it is all anonymous, but
then so does any other social media site. The website has a duty to do as much
as they can to stop abuse, but then so do the users themselves. No one is
forcing you to have an ask.fm profile, or indeed engage with it.

If we look to Lawrence Lessig's four modalities of regulation, up until this
point, ask.fm has relied on the social norm of users not making hurtful
comments to other users. Advertisers pulling out is a form of regulation by
the market, but it will hurt the site, not the offending users, and I believe
the site does as much as it can to stop bullying. Removing some of their
revenue won't stop the problem unless they shut the whole site down because
they run out of money.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I completely agree with you. but while I do find it strange that people being
bullied on it don't just delete their accounts the people involved are usually
young teenagers not thinking as rationally. Cyber bullying seems to becoming
more of a problem. Logically it seems that it's easier to stop than regular
bullying (if you're being attacked online delete the account/stop using the
service/report the users) but the reality for younger people is clearly more
complex.

