Questions about ‘Ask’

Scrolling down the Facebook newsfeed, many people are greeted by a big blue box with white and green letters inside. The link opens up ask.fm, a webpage filled with questions such as who are you best friends? who do you like? and the answers to these questions. The site also contains a text box for people to submit anonymous questions. 

Ask.fm was created in June, 2010, and has sinced grown to become the 200th most visited site in the world. Open to anyone the age of 13 or older, the site has completely changed the way its user interact with each other and how they get to know each other.

Upon opening an account, users are swarmed with a barrage of questions and comments, which are sent anonymously, with the option to answer them. With no monitors on the site, the questions and comments are unfiltered.

Junior Tony Holt said most questions are either random or weird. But sometimes a relevant question pops up and makes the experience of ask.fm more enjoyable.

Although users do not always know who is sending the questions, some see the site as a fun way to pass the time.

“When someone has the opportunity to tell you something anonymously, they can say more about more topics,” sophomore Michael Ma said.

Most users open these accounts to have people ask them questions in a more open environment.

“It allows [people] to ask me personal things they don't want to ask publically,” Holt said.

Even though there are those who enjoy ask.fm, others don’t like it. Under the cloak of anonymity, people have a wall they can hide behind when they type rude or even mean comments.

“If you open an ask.fm, you are asking for mean stuff,” sophomore Kimberly Chen said.  “A lot of cyberbullying happens.”