Jessica Laney committed suicide.
A 16 year old member of Ask.fm – a web site where people set up profiles and answer questions – committed suicide on Sunday.
Jessica Laney, whose friends and schoolmates started a Facebook page in her memory, was a typical high school kid, fond of her school, boys, and soccer.
Several insensitive comments on her Ask.fm page apparently pushed her to commit suicide by hanging herself. Some of the comments called her “an ugly-ass hoe” and another urged her to kill herself already.
There is now a petition on Change.org, asking for the closing down of Ask.fm as it caters to teenagers:
“People can asking annoymous question on this website and you can be kept a secret on who you are. This website needs to be taken down http://ask.fm/ because of this website it just lost a young teen. She was happy and enjoying life untill some asshole came and started to bully her. We need to be heard and get this website down ASAP. RIP Jessica Laney 🙁 you will be missed.”
While some call this incident a case of “cyber-bullying“, it is not clear whether Jessica Laney was facing any personal problems. Her Tumblr account references a recent break up with a boy.
Ask.fm is definitely going to defend their terms and conditions and overall modus operandi, but it is sad that Jessica Laney is not among us. Parents must be aware at all times, that kids who go through puberty are very vulnerable towards comments by their peers – in person, or on social networks.
