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Hannah Smith
In a statement released to the media, the social media site who many believe is indirectly responsible for the teenager’s death, said Hannah Smith had sent 98 per cent of the abusive messages she received on Ask.fm to herself.
While other news outlets reported it as a statement made by Ask.fm in a press release, the article by freelance writer Nina Funell, reported the statement as fact.
In the article published by on Fairfax news sites, Ms Funell wrote: “In an inquiry into the matter, Ask.fm has uncovered that 98 per cent of the abusive messages sent to Hannah came from the same IP address as her own computer. Only four of the abusive comments came from other IP addresses.”
Firstly, there was no ‘inquiry’ it was an ‘internal’ investigation by Ask.fm who haven’t provided the media with any proof to back up their claim that the teenager was sending abusive messages to herself.
Secondly, you don’t have to be a genius to realise that Ask.fm released the statement to the media in an attempt to deflect blame from themselves and they did this in the most appalling way possible, by blaming the 14 year old victim.
But let’s say for argument’s sake that the allegations made by Ask.fm were true. Isn’t it then a stretch to say that teenagers posting abusive messages to themselves on social media is a “phenomenon”? Nina Funell doesn’t think so.
In her article Ms Funell quoted the results of a small survey of 617 American college students conducted by Elizabeth Englander from the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Centre. However, the same study that found up to 10 per cent of first-year university students had “falsely posted a cruel remark against themselves, or cyberbullied themselves, during high school”, also found that half of these so called “digital self-harmers” had sent only ONE abusive message to themselves. Incidences of teens sending more than a couple of abusive messages to themselves, are rare.
The article published by Fairfax also referred to statements made on a blog written by social media researcher Danah Boyd. It appears all this information was probably lifted from a blog post published on the Cyberbullying Research Center website. Again, we see Ms Funell offering statements as fact.
What concerns me most is the irreparable harm this has done to the cause of reducing incidences of cyber bullying.
How many teens will be told they’re sending abusive messages to themselves just to get some attention? How long before we see a teen suicide because no-one believed the kid when he or she disclosed they were being bullied on the internet?
Although Fairfax did publish Nina Funell’s piece as ‘comment’. Does simply calling it ‘comment’ make it any less influential in the arena of public opinion?
Commercial news sites such as Fairfax, are in a position to influence public opinion on a wide range of issues. And let’s be honest, your average consumer of news content doesn’t know the difference between factual news content and commentary. You only have to read the comments posted beneath Nina Funell’s piece to know that, is a fact.
Thank you so much for this piece. Since the UK media started peddling the claim (not fact) that Hannah Smith had ‘bullied herself’ I have been arguing that, even if ask.fm ‘investigations’ have determined that bullying messages came from the same IP address as that used by Hannah, it far from proves that she posted them herself. It merely shows that Hannah and her tormentors may have used the same library, fast food outlet or coffee shop to get online.
In addition, Ask.fm yesterday released a statement promising reforms to their policies and procedures going forward. One paragraph talks about using email verification on signup (which is a basic procedure used by 99% of social sites anyway) and says: “using an email verification upon sign-up, Ask.fm can capture the email and IP addresses of users and be better equipped to deal with reports.”
If, as this suggests, ask.fm have not been capturing IP addresses previously, it is IMPOSSIBLE for them to state where messages posted to Hannah’s profile came from, who posted them or what ISP/Network they used.
Charles Conway
Internet Safety Consultant
Clear as Crystal Training
UK
Thank you Charles. Unfortunately this piece hasn’t attracted a lot of support from readers, with no shares on social media and no other comments but yours. Like yourself, I am outraged by how Hannah Smith has been treated by Ask.fm and the media. But it seems we are in the minority and it baffles me why more people aren’t outraged about this.
Unfortunately Deborah it seems that we ARE in the minority. The majority of comments on Internet safety related issues either dismiss Cyberbullying as unimportant (Why can’t kids just TURN IT OFF) or put responsibility solely at the door of the parents (Well, if they were watching their kids….)
The reality is so different. Cyberbullying is very real and falls to all of us to address. That’s parents, schools, government, internet service providers, website operators and the media.
Dismissing Hannah’s ordeal does nothing to help. If kids are put off from reporting online bullying because they fear that they’ll be accused of “attention seeking” perpetrators of “Digital Self Harm” , then what coping mechanisms will they employ? Actual self-harm? Worse?
Bullying is bullying, whether it’s name-calling or physical assault in the playground or hateful comments posted online and survivors of bullying need support.
I was unaware of this incident until now, but the fact that someone could bring themselves to blame Hannah disgusts me. In my school years I myself was bullied to the point where I made numerous attempts to end my life and until my parents found out and contacted the school, I was dismissed by classmates AND TEACHERS as “just trying to get attention”. Just because the messages sent to Hannah were traced back to the same Internet connection does not in any way mean she was sending them to herself. Nor does it give anyone the right to dismiss the fact that she was in so much pain that she truly felt like death would be the only release. The fact that a trained, professional journalist could publish something like that without properly weighing up the context and being sure of ALL the facts is completely and utterly disgusting!