Madeline Zayed, junior, created an Ask.fm account expecting to answer fun, interesting questions about herself. Instead, Zayed received a torrent of accusations and criticisms about her behavior.

Ask.fm is a website where you create an account, and then link it to your peers who then ask you questions about yourself. However, there are no privacy controls, so anyone could ask a question, or in worse case scenarios, barrage you with insults. Thanks to the anonymous setting, anyone with a laptop can ask a person with a profile anything they want with virtually no repercussions.

“We didn’t have this kind of technology when we were your age so it puts a lot of power into the hands of teenagers that I don’t think many adults are even aware of,” said Mrs. Julie Conroy, Spanish teacher.

Zayad said that she has found a support system in her friends regarding the bullying, but then admitted that her parents do not know about the website. If they asked, Zayed claimed, she would tell them.

The website has been around since 2008 but is now picking up steam. According to the Business Insider, 65 million people use the site, and about half those users are under the age of 18. As of yet, nine teenagers have committed suicide as a result of the bullying stemming from the site.

“I would tell [individuals]interested in getting ask.fm that if they really want it so badly, they should get it, but I would also warn them on the side that people may ask too personal of questions [that] might put them down because of a current situation in their lives,” said Zayed. After Zayed’s fight with a close friend, anonymous askers flooded Zayed’s ask.fm inbox with criticisms and insults regarding her actions.

Naveen Balaji, senior, believes the website can be used for good. At first, Balaji created an account to annoy a friend that always posted his answers on his Facebook, but then he stuck around after receiving a plethora of interesting questions.

“I don’t want to say it’s like a surge of adrenaline when I get a question, but I kind of get excited when I see that notification,” Balaji said. “After I actually tried it out, it was amazing. I was surprised people actually wanted to know things about me and what they asked. I would definitely do it again.”

Zayed has similar feelings, but unlike Balaji, she does not think that the fun questions are worth the risk of bullying.

“I have mixed feelings about it. It’s nice to answer interesting questions, but [when] the cyber bullying starts, it gets out of hand,” Zayed said.

Zayed, however, has no regrets about making an account. “Don’t listen to the people who insult you anonymously through ask.fm. They’re just too scared to tell you in person and are not worth your time,” Zayed said.