The increasingly popular teenage question and answer social network, Ask.fm, has launched an online Safety Centre to help internet users develop online safety skills.

With more than 90 million registered users across 150 different countries, the site allows users to ask and answer more than 35 million questions a day. As its popularity has soared, the company has analysed how consumers interact with social media and have developed a central hub that provides information on what they have put in place to promote the safety of users.

The Safety Centre is a place where parents, carers, teachers, and users themselves can search for information on how the site works, online safety tips, and the company’s strict terms and conditions. It also aims to educate parents and others close to the users about how to stay safe online.

Ilja Terebin, Ask.fm’s CEO, said: “The safety and protection of our users, especially younger ones, is of paramount importance to us and we now have a place where people can learn more about this crucial topic. We will constantly review how risks to users change and will update guidance in order to ensure they remain alert to changing behaviours online.”

In the past few months the company has demonstrated its commitment to the protection of users by introducing a series of safety protocols. These include increasing the number of moderators on its team, making the reporting of inappropriate content easy and straight-forward, and developing a number of layers to catch and automatically remove illicit content.

In addition, the company reviews every picture and video uploaded on Ask.fm. They are assessed by independent moderators and if deemed inappropriate, will be removed on average within 15 minutes.

The company recently joined the Internet Watch Foundation, an organisation that is at the cutting edge of the fight against illegal online content since it was established in 1996.

To visit the hub, go to: www.ask.fm/safety

By MediaBUZZ