Specsavers reportedly becomes latest brand to pull advertising from ask.fm

Specsavers has reportedly become the latest in a line of brands to pull advertising from social networking service ask.fm after the suicide of 14-year-old Hannah Smith was linked to bullying on the website.ITV News business editor Laura Kuenssberg tweeted she’d been told by the brand they had instructed their ads be taken down from the site.

@Specsavers has told me they have instructed Ask.fm to remove their advertising from their sites - just verifying its genuine feed

— Laura Kuenssberg (@ITVLauraK) August 8, 2013

Appears to be a verified account, so that is another advertiser, Specsavers, pulling money from the site

— Laura Kuenssberg (@ITVLauraK) August 8, 2013

The news follows similar announcements from Save the Children, Vodafone , Laura Ashley and DialAFlight.Ask.fm apologised earlier this week following Hannah Smith’s death and said they would cooperate with Leicestershire police over the matter.More than 12,000 people have signed an e-petition calling on the government to safeguard children from such websites while Prime Minister David Cameron has urged internet users to boycott “vile” websites which allow cyberbullying.The social network allows users to post anonymous messages and, according to the Telegraph, Smith’s death is the fourth teenage suicide to be linked to threatening and abusive posts on the site.The controversy follows campaigns against trolling behaviour on Twitter after Twitter has pledged to simplify its facilities for reporting abuse.Should this subject affect yourself or any other young person you know, then ChildLine can be contacted on 0800 1111.