Troll riddled Ask.fm insists changes will make their site safer

Erin Gallagher the 13-year-old Donegal girl who committed suicide
due to online bullies on Ask.fm

Ask.fm, the website implicated in the suicides of at least two Irish schoolgirls who suffered online abuse through its pages, has promised that a series of new safety features will make the website substantially safer for its users.

The site is particularly popular among young Irish adolescents and allows users to submit questions anonymously to other users' profiles.

The sites' founders said that a through safety review has now been completed and that a report functionality, similar to that found on Facebook, will be installed. More staff will also be hired to work as full time moderators to weed out abusive comments.

An extra website will also be created specifically for parents.


The website suffered an advertising backlash in the wake of the suicides, with major clients Vodafone, Laura Ashley, and charity Save the Children all pulling their campaigns from the site.

The site has cooperated in sending the IP addresses of offending messengers to law enforcement but many parents may justifiably fear that the latest series of changes will not go far enough in making the site a secure environment for online peer-to-peer communication.

A concerned parent told the UK Daybreak breakfast show that some schools were already taking the step of sending out text messages to parents advising them to keep their children off the site.

David Smith, the parent of Hannah, who took her life after receiving a torrent of abuse through the website, welcomed the news today; he had previously been an outspoken advocate for enhanced security on Ask.fm and other social networking websites.

Marketing group in hot water over sex night after 'knickers for drink' scandal

Crowds getting wild at Karma nightclub in Athlone

Irish parents are reportedly enraged after an Athlone nightclub decided to promote a sex themed party to coincide with Leaving Cert (SAT) results' night.

Raunchy rodeo games, a wet t-shirt contest, and all-out drinking contests were among the attractions promised on flyers advertising the 'F**k Results' night at the Karma Nightclub, in Athlone.

The story made the front page of yesterday's Irish Sun, a popular national tabloid publication.

A spokesman for the National Parents' Council, the group representing Irish school children's parents, said that the promotion was 'appalling.'

Another told the Sun that teenagers "should not be subject to this kind of promotion"; a local politician described the night as marketing companies trying to "take advantage" of young students.

The night was the work of the now-notorious Midnight Promotions, a marketing company that is no stranger to controversy and which previously caused media outrage after running a Dublin club night where female patrons could exchange their underwear for free drinks.

Remarkably, despite national media coverage of that promotion, Midnight ran a similar night offering free entry to women that sent in cleavage snaps just a number of days' ago.

The company, which has been regularly accused of misogynism, sexism, and 'crossing the line' with its edgy promotions, also suffered a massive publicity fallout from a night it ran at another Dublin nightclub, Alchemy, whose poster was sub-titled "if you're not up for it, don't cum."

A "significant number of complaints" were lodged to the country's advertising regulator in the wake of that event, but it said it did not have authority to regulate the contents of advertising via social media at the present time.

A Facebook group with 600 concerned members was even founded to "end Monday at Alchemy's sexist and dangerous advertising," still believed to be managed by Midnight.

The company is also largely behind a new tabloid-esque college news website, according to the University Times. which largely features content about sex, drinking, and celebrity news.

It's men's guides on one night stands recently, similarly, provoked a number of complaints.