THE BOSS of the website where Erin Gallagher was bullied has hit out at claims his site was responsible for her death.
In a response to the Ray D’Arcy show on Today FM, ask.fm founder Mark Terebin lashed out at those who blamed his site.
He expressed his sympathy to the 13-year-old’s family.
But he insisted no-one could blame him.
Radio host D’Arcy has been trying to get Terebin to appear on his radio show, but he refused – instead using his own site to respond to the growing anger over the social network site.
D’Arcy asked Terebin: Please tell us why you will not talk to the Irish people regarding the deaths by suicide of two young Irish girls because of bullying they received through this site?
Terebin responded: Mass media is knocking on wrong door. It is necessary to go deeper and to find a root of a problem. Its not about the site, the problem is about education, about moral values that were devaluated lately. Ask.fm is just a tool which helps people to communicate with each other, same as any other social network, same as phone, same as piece of paper and pen. Don’t blame a tool, but try to make changes… start with yourself… be more polite, more kind, more tolerant of others… cultivate these values in families, in schools.
Suicide is not something to encourage via mass media. The more you promote suicide, the more it happen. Do you think mass media cares? They want scandals, they want sensations and finally they want money. Sorry, but we do not want to participate in it.
What happened is a true tragedy and we give our deepest condolences to the victim’s family and relatives.
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