Potentially negative – ASKfm: Ask Questions & Answer Review

When ASKfm is used appropriately, I think it is a harmless app that provides many adolescents with joy and entertainment. However, ASKfm can become inappropriate and harmful very easily. The app is intended for people ages 13 and older, but does not explicitly state the age the oldest users should be. As a result, young teenagers are able to ask questions and answer the questions of people much older than them, which can become inappropriate and even dangerous. Furthermore, even if teenagers are only communicating with their actual friends, they are exposed to questions that are trending on the app, often which are not age appropriate. When I was playing with the app, a trending question asked what users’ funniest injury was. This question seems harmless, but an ASKfm user shared that her funniest injury came from a time she was “blackout drunk.” This question and answer is no longer appropriate for a 13 year old to read and analyze. There were other questions that were less appropriate, and many answers that were sexually explicit, included drug and alcohol references, or were instances of bullying. Also, users can ask and answer questions anonymously on ASKfm, and this false sense of anonymity enables users to share intimate, explicit, graphic, or inappropriate information in their questions and answers. This anonymous feature is a negative aspect of ASKfm because teenagers can share information and converse with others without exposing themselves or being held accountable for their actions. After numerous teen suicides, in the US and UK, from incidents that occurred on anonymous apps such as ASKfm, ASKfm developers realized they needed to protect users from harassment (Carpenter, 2017). ASKfm developers added protection features to their app, such as the ability to report bullies, but it still includes the anonymous question and answer feature, which significantly reduces my rating of ASKfm. In addition, ASKfm collects extensive information on users, and although ASKfm claims they are not using this information for anything harmful, it worries me that they have access to user’s personal information.
Review by lizas514 on ASKfm: Ask Questions & Answer.