Ask fm and the question of censorship

Maybe I am a fuddy duddy but until a few days ago I thought that ask.fm was just a radio station. But then I read this story about a young girl who had apparently committed suicide because of cyber bullying she had received on that site. This has brought up a huge debate over Internet censorship, with calls from politicians and the press for the site to be banned. Politicians from all sides of the political spectrum,  the companies which have pulled adverts from the website and the mainstream media, from the Daily Mail to the Guardian, are quick to place the blame on ask.fm, However, no one knows if this poor child had issues that led her to commit suicide. There is also the fact that increasing pressure is being placed on young girls to look and dress a certain way in order to be accepted by their peers.....but that is a subject for a future post.

Coincidentally, a few weeks ago, the government were talking about bringing stricter controls to our Internet content, something that I totally oppose.I consider myself to be a free thinker and censorship is usually an anathema to me. But having a look at the site in question has made me think.

Trawling through the site I don't really see much evidence of cyber bulling, although I did see instances of insults being traded back and forth, much in the same way as normal playground banter. However, the problem as I see it with ask.fm is not bullying  but rather that this site is a paedophile's wet dream come true.

The site appears to be popular amongst young teenagers of school age. They create a profile with a little bit of information about themselves, add pictures and then invite visitors to the site to ask them anything. The person who asks the questions doesn't necessarily have to have a profile, and this is where the problem lies. Below are some screencaps I just took at random from some profiles so that can see for yourselves.

But how can we, as a society, solve this issue without taking draconian measures? The kid in the second screencap makes the suggestion that anonymous posting should be stopped. That is quite a good suggestion, but in reality, it is extremely easy to set up a fake profile, and even use a proxy server to hide your location. In my opinion, we need to look at how we live our own lives and take responsibility for our own actions and that of our children. Why don't parents monitor what their children get up to online? Or is it much more convenient to let your child loose on the Internet whilst you are watching the latest episode of TOWIE?  I will leave you with that thought.....