Editorial: Formspring enables bullying, imperils users

6/1/2010 5:42:43 PM By The Editorial Board Bloggers call it “the easier form of cyber-bullying,” “the online version of a bathroom wall in a school; a place to scrawl raw anonymous gossip” and “Facebook’s mean-spirited older sister.” Formspring is the new and controversial social networking site that has become popular nationwide in less than a year. The site, on which anyone can post anonymous questions or comments, is a veritable playground for cyberbullying. Here are a few shortened, relatively clean examples of these comments: “You’re ugly.” “You’re a slut.” “You have a bad body.” “You’re a bitch.” A death threat can now be added to the list. Last week, a sophomore at St. Francis High School received a comment from someone stating that he or she would come to school and shoot the girl and her three friends on May 26 (see story on page 1). This is the inevitable result of Formspring. When questioners can hide behind the mask of anonymity, there are no limits to what they will say. Whether this was a serious threat or merely a joke remains unknown. But without any way of knowing who made the threat, students and faculty must assume it is serious. Moreover, the anonymity of Formspring makes it dangerous, even when users aren’t being directly threatened. One never knows who’s asking the questions. Users privately see these questions and they choose to respond, making both the question and response public. But “public” with Formspring does not mean “public” only to friends as with Facebook—it means public to the whole world. Users are giving away their names, pictures and personal details at the top of Formspring pages. Their answers reveal details about their schools, friends, boyfriends, etc. Formspring users make themselves vulnerable to not only demeaning comments, but real potential danger. Formspring has taken bullying to a new level and we hope that users at Country Day learn from what happened at St. Francis. We recommend that students think twice about creating a new Formspring or continuing to use their existing one.