page_title: Ask.fm
section_title: 2010–2014: Launching and cyberbullying controversies
hierarchical_section_title: Ask.fm / History / 2010–2014: Launching and cyberbullying controversies
caption_attribution_description: English: Logo for the social media website Ask.fm
context_page_description: Ask.fm is a Latvian social networking site where users create profiles and can send each other questions. It was once a form of anonymous social media that encouraged questions to be submitted anonymously. The site was founded in 2010 in Riga, Latvia. Its headquarters was moved to Dublin, Ireland following its 2014 acquisition by IAC. In 2016 IAC sold it to Noosphere Ventures, a California-based asset management firm.
context_section_description: The site was founded in Latvia by brothers Ilja (Iļja) and Mark Terebin (Marks Terebins), Oskars Liepiņš, Valērijs Vešņakovs and Klāvs Sinka, and launched on 16 June 2010, as a rival to Formspring. By 2013, ASKfm reached 65 million registered users and continued its growth by approx. 300,000 new users per-day.
  On 6 August 2013 it was reported that Hannah Smith, a 14-year-old girl from Leicestershire, England, had killed herself, and that her father blamed her death on cyberbullying responses she had received on the site. He called for tighter controls against social networking sites like Ask.fm, saying that he had seen the abuse his daughter had received and it was wrong that it was anonymous. The Smith family calls were echoed by the parents of Goosnargh, Lancashire teenager Joshua Unsworth, who was reported to have been "cyberbullied" on the site prior to his suicide.
  Following the suicide of Smith, British Prime Minister David Cameron called for a boycott of websites that do not take responsibility for dealing with cyberbullying on their sites. Several advertisers responded by severing links with the site, including (amongst others) Save the Children, eBay, BT and Vodafone had already stopped advertising on the site.
  The company responded by stating it was 'happy to help police'. ASKfm also conducted an internal audit and made changes to its safety policies accordingly. Above all, they enhanced reporting and blocking functionalities, and they hired more moderation staff to review reports within 24 hours upon receiving them. ASKfm also encouraged more users to have registered accounts, so the company could capture IP data for safety purposes.
  The further investigation showed there was no sufficient evidence to suggest that using the ASKfm site has led to the death of the young girl. In fact, Det Sgt Wayne Simmons revealed that Hannah had been sending ‘bullying and aggressive messaging’ to herself. Later Hannah Smith's case of self-bullying became a subject of academic research.
caption: The former logo of ASKfm
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