If you’re anything like my parents, you probably wouldn’t even understand most of the content that floods my social media, no matter how hard I try to avoid it.
Here’s a recent example from Instagram: “Do y’all females ever tell ur homegirls ‘Sis chill you letting too many dudes hit?’” Essentially, that means: “Women – do you ever tell your girlfriends that they’re whores and need to stop letting so many guys fuck them?” The reel, posted by a 19-year-old man, appeared on my Instagram feed without me wanting to see it, or ever interacting with any other similar content. The comments that followed were pure misogyny. “Women see body count as a leaderboard and they try to outdo each other,” was one of them. Translation: all women are competitively promiscuous.
Consider the use of the word “female” in these posts. It is not a neutral term here, it is a term of abuse. It’s used by teenage boys to degrade us and equate us to animals. Boys are never described as “males”, but girls are always “females” – the equivalent of sows or calves, creatures that are less than human. We’re also “thots” (whores), “community pussy” and “bops”. “Bop” stands for “been over passed” and is a derogatory term used by boys to refer to a girl they’ve decided has been “passed around” or had too much sex. Sexual equality has ceased to exist online. It’s absolutely fine for boys to have sex, but when girls do, they are called worthless and referred to as objects. “When community pussy tries to insult me, I just want to beat that bitch up.” That’s a message I saw on TikTok.
I’m a 15-year-old schoolgirl and like most teenagers I spend a fair portion of my spare time on social media, often scrolling through short-form videos on apps such as Instagram or TikTok. All of my friends use those apps, and many spend multiple hours a day on them. I actively try to avoid online misogyny, but I am met with it incessantly whenever I open my mainstream social media apps. It only takes a few minutes before there’s subtle or overt misogyny, such as comment sections on a girl’s post filled with remarks about her body, videos made by men or boys captioned with a degrading joke, and even topics such as domestic violence or rape, trivialised and laughed about.
Don’t use Instagram or TikTok ✅👍
Enragebait is a well known consequence of using a profit-driven Algorithm, i.e. enshittification.
15-year-olds are not being specifically targeted so much as caught up in the phenomena occuring overall.
The thing is this isn’t a phenomena that’s recent. This type of shitty misogynism has been going on for decades/centuries. The only difference between then and now is that we have social apps that make it easier to spread.
I’m coming up on 70 yrs old and misogynism has always been the bane of my existence.
I’m not quite 70 years old, but I’ve been around for long enough to laugh at this line from the article: “Sexual equality has ceased to exist online”
Only a 15 year old could think that sexual equality ever existed online. It may be hard to believe, but it’s probably better now than it ever has been. Back in the early days online spaces were so male dominated that people had trouble believing that women were even online at all.
If misogyny were somehow magically solved tomorrow, then Xhitter would still remain a
misogynistichellhole, featuring a cesspit of whatever traits of humanity triggered clicking or views or whatever generates the highest profits (maybe in the future, trying to gain the attention of bots will vastly outweigh what happens to us here humans, in the same manner as corporations replaced individual businesses in the economic sphere?).The specific situation described in the article is misogy, but it points to deeper roots of enshittification. The 15 year old girl will still feel put upon, even unsafe, even if it has nothing to do with her femininity anymore.
good thing these men don’t exist outside of social media! whew, we dodged a big one there…
and i sure hope this school girl doesn’t go to any place regularly where she sees these teenage boys, oh wouldn’t that be unfortunate???
School is mandatory, Xhitter is not.
If she walked home and along the way stopped off at a particular cafe, and always got side-eyed by people there… then yeah, I would say hang out somewhere else?
Be the change that you want to see in the world, and all of that.
Woman: I keep getting catcalled on the street and it’s disturbing my sense of safety.
OpenStars: stop going outside, easy.
Knowing that these sites are bad and the algorithm is part of that doesn’t make “just don’t use those sites” a viable option when most or all of someone’s peers are also using them. That is part of the social media companies’ strategy, to make switching costs so high no one leaves.
Woman: I keep getting catcalled on the street and it’s disturbing my sense of safety.
OpenStars: stop going outside, easy.
False equivalency. Going outside is not similar to using Instagram.
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Looks like you’ve mistakenly replied to the wrong comment. Which is ironic because… try reading? With your eyes?
Yep. Apologies.
I agree with your sentiment here. Obviously, it’s possible to avoid using Instagram and TikTok, and it’s basically impossible to avoid using the street.
On the other hand, if you’re a teenage girl, it may be nearly impossible to not use these big corporate social media sites. A big part of being a teen is socializing with other teens. A big part of being an adolescent is learning to fit in with other adolescents without constant adult supervision. It’s one of the reason that home schooled kids have a rough time once they hit college, university or work. Many remain deeply strange for a long while after that.
If all the other teens in your social group are using Instagram and TikTok and you’re the one person who isn’t, you’re probably going to be ostracized. Liking and commenting on each-other’s social media posts is an important ritual of friendship at that age.
Sometimes parents ban or restrict social media usage by their kids. To a certain extent that can shield the kid, because it’s no longer their fault, and their friends might accept that. But, still, if the kid isn’t on social media, they’re probably not getting invited to in-person events, they don’t know what the important topics of conversation are, and so-on.
I mean, the nerve of saying “don’t use social media” on a social media site is pretty rich. And, don’t think a 15-year old is going to switch from TikTok to PeerTube or something. You might be able to get them to try it out, but you’re not easily going to migrate her entire friend group. The content is also not there. Plus, fediverse sites are inhabited by deeply strange people. I love you all, but I wouldn’t want you interacting with a 15 year old girl.
I love you all, but I wouldn’t want you interacting with a 15 year old girl.
Such a strange thing to say. A lot of the people here probably have daughters around that age. A lot of the people here are perfectly normal people.
Such a strange thing to say.
Wait, you include yourself?! 🤣
Well someone has to be first to switch platforms.
If you always get catcalled between Fourth Street and Sixth Street, and you never get catcalled on First through Third Street or Seventh and above, then yeah, maybe just know that going onto Fifth Street you might get catcalled?
You could try expressing your explicit disapproval to Elon Musk directly, maybe that will help?
Actually no, it’s not just “Fifth Street”, it’s Fifth Street in an entirely different country. Tiktok is based on China, Insta and Twitter are in the USA. Normally the rules governing a platform are a combination of the origination point and whatever interrelations exist - although obviously Donald Trump is rewriting those at will to suit him. And yet the UK could do the same… or make an alternative, if it wanted to?
Don’t use Instagram or TikTok
This isn’t realistic to tell a kid who uses social media, it’s like saying “Don’t play Xbox” or “Don’t watch new releases, only watch stuff that’s out on video already”
This isn’t a specific platform problem, it’s a social problem and needs social solutions. The solution we need the most involves a lot of tranquilizer darts and reeducation camps for about 28% of society broadly. That’s probably not going to be realistic, so the second best approach is the one that people are most adverse to trying, which is more active and involved parenting and reducing screen-time as a whole family.
I’m burning out seeing all this “social media on children” talk when it’s the adults’ relationship to social media that is causing the most widespread harm.
This isn’t realistic to tell a kid who uses social media
Sure it is, you just don’t like the answer. Which is strange coming from someone who is presumably on Lemmy because they didn’t like the way reddit was conducting business and decided to leave. You moved to a competing service, it’s also an option to just not use those types of social media at all.
This thread has real orphan-crushing-machine vibes to it. Many just take for granted that of course kids have to use social media. They don’t and neither do you. It’s not the path of least resistance but why would you expect taking care of yourself to be easy in a society designed to do everything possible to beat you into submission and extract value from the lifeless husk that remains?
“But but Lemmy is social media and you participate here. Curious.”
No, not in the same way that Instagram and the rest are. Pseudo-anonymous forums are fundamentally different both in the way people interact with one another and in the types of content they tend to generate.
You seem to be reacting contentiously here, maybe you’re thinking I’m defending this social trend, I’m just pointing out that if you think banning, restricting or taking away social media from youth is an answer, you’re ignoring the massive wall of incentive pushed on people by capital forces to use the largest, most commercially active platforms, and we would have a long way to go socially before this isn’t the most attractive option for adults and children alike.
We have to address this issue with adults and kids alike drawn into this magic realm of dopamine scrolling and marketing. If you just say “stop using this thing you like” without an actual motivation behind it or a way to address the addictive nature of it, you won’t have any more success than if you put a pack of cigarettes on the kitchen counter of a smoker and say “Don’t you smoke these! It’s bad for you!” why are you setting yourself up for disappointment and anger at others?
Like, fucking duh, people know what’s bad for them while continuing to engage in bad behavior, if you can do it fine, great, we’re not talking about how easy it is for you personally to quit bad habits, we’re talking about a larger issue and have to treat populations like populations, not apply your own standard onto millions of people and expect them to handle any of this the same way. This is a social problem, not a moral failing, the moralizing of things that hurt us has been a scourge on actual helping with issues like eating, addiction, sex and literally everything else we try to overcome as a species.
“But but Lemmy is social media and you participate here. Curious.”
I can’t really follow what your imagined argument is about but it’s kind of annoying and giving self-fart-huffing energy.
If you just say “stop using this thing you like” without an actual motivation behind it, you won’t have any more success than if you put a pack of cigarettes on the kitchen counter of a smoker and say “Don’t you smoke these! It’s bad for you!”
First of all, it doesn’t sound like these people actually like these platforms. The article in the OP is about a girl describing the pervasive abuse she experiences while using them. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say in response “you’re clearly not enjoying this so just stop doing it”. Second, that is fundamentally sound advice to both this girl and the person smoking in your analogy. The fact that both might be hard habits to break doesn’t make the solution any less simple. Simple != easy.
you’re ignoring the massive wall of incentive pushed on people by capital forces to use the largest, most commercially active platforms
No I’m not. I specifically called that out in my response. As I said, avoiding them as the solution may not be easy but it is simple in concept. Maintaining your health in all forms is hard to do but the steps to follow are not complex.
I can’t really follow what your imagined argument is about
I have seen people in this thread and others use that argument as a way to sidestep the conversation at hand and pivot to something more juvenile and uninteresting. I added it to head off that line of thinking and prevent this from trending in a pointless direction. If you weren’t about to say something like that then feel free to ignore it but I wanted to make it clear I’m not interested in going down that path with you or anyone else reading the thread and considering replying.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say in response “you’re clearly not enjoying this so just stop doing it”
You need to learn about addiction I think, you can ask anyone with an addiction if they enjoy their drug, and they will universally say no, they hate it, they wish they could have it out of their life, but their brains are holding them there. This is the “disease” part of addiction and why you can’t just tell someone to “stop doing the thing that’s hurting you” and that expectation that you can do that is harmful. We have studied and researched this in great detail.
This isn’t even an issue with seeing bad things on your feed, this is an issue with there being a “feed” at all, and your own connection to that feed and what you’re getting out of it, what it’s replacing in your life. You, your parents, your kids, everyone is hitting off this drug and everyone is addicted and hating it. It’s literally an addictive drug but we’re not treating it like one because it goes directly to the brain instead of using a chemical go-between to do the exact same thing as a drug. So whole families are doing this drug night and day and not pulling each other out because it’s not being recognized as a drug with dangers.
I am not sure you really know what you’re arguing, as evident by the continued tangents to imagined conversations so I’ll end it here, take some time to think about what it is exactly you’re making a case for or against.
You’re presenting additional nuance as if it disproves what I’m saying and it doesn’t. I understand that overcomimg any addiction is more difficult than saying “I’m going to stop this behavior”. However, any approach you decide to take is fundamentally just breaking down that ultimate goal into practical steps. I’ve repeatedly said I agree that there are usually more steps involved but you seem categorically opposed to agreeing that changing your behavior is the goal of any addiction treatment and that seems like a you problem more than a problem with anything that I’m saying.
If you just bothered reading instead of vomiting words, you’d learn the problem is persistent to real life, too. Asshole.
Of course it is. Do you think “misogyny exists in real life” is a novel idea to anyone old enough to know what that word means? You can’t opt out of being exposed to it in real life though so unless you’re proposing suicide as a solution I’m not sure how that’s related to what we’re discussing. Dumbass.
This isn’t realistic to tell a kid who uses social media, it’s like saying “Don’t play Xbox” or “Don’t watch new releases, only watch stuff that’s out on video already”
Do these kids just not have parents or adult guardians?
This isn’t a platform problem
It is though. You think the spreading of this content is an accident? They could change the algorithm tomorrow and it would disappear, but they won’t because this division is useful to them.
I guess to elaborate on that point I will say that it’s not a specific platform problem, meaning all the naive Lemmykids here saying “move to fediverse and you won’t have problems anymore” are just playing shell-game with the problem, it’s going to be inherent to ANY platform that publishes content as long as there’s commercial incentive to grab people’s attention.
There’s some truth to that but the lack of algorithmic manipulation will make it easier to deal with. Plus you just have more options here on Lemmy to deal with it. Most instance operators have shown a willingness to restrict or even defederate from other instances when they are consistently shit to deal with.
This isn’t a specific platform problem, it’s a social problem and needs social solutions.
The erosion of free (or mostly free), teen-friendly physical third spaces is a big part of this problem, imo. As is the culture of clamping down on kids’ free movement irl. Young people need to have safe spots to hang out together without being pressured to spend money or have a ton of adults breathing down their necks.
Not saying that misogyny or bigotry would disappear, but bringing these back in an accessible way could allow kids to grow again without dealing with corporate surveillance apparatuses as their only social lifeline.
I quite enjoyed hanging out with my friends without having a flood of antisocial adults hurl venom at us on repeat. They deserve that chance too.
I absolutely agree, we used to have movie theaters and arcades and skate parks and various kinds of stores that people would hang out at just because going out and shopping was what people did, so shopping areas were developed to make them more attractive.
With the advent of online shopping, places like malls died rapidly and with them also died outdoor activities and people just hanging out around other people in crowds, there was an energy to life that disappeared with malls and so many storefronts. There are still a few malls and pleasant shopping areas here and there, but they’re not places you want to spend time at, they’re more like showrooms for Amazon.
I don’t know if there’s a good answer for that though, I don’t know if you just started building things like arcades and youth bookstores and the like if you would actually get anyone going out to use them, because that original incentive is gone, the whole “going out and seeing what’s new” thing has disappeared, because again… we get all that from our algorithmic feeds.
What would make YOU excited to go out and hang out around other people? I feel that the entire premise is dying, and adults are equally crippled by this problem as kids, which is why I keep saying this isn’t just a “kids and social media” problem, this is all of us and our relationship with the internet.
What would make YOU excited to go out and hang out around other people? I feel that the entire premise is dying, and adults are equally crippled by this problem as kids
That’s a completely fair question and point.
My being an adult skews my answer, so idk if it’s a fair one but I recently went to a local concert and had a blast with the other people there. What makes me, as an individual, excited overall is knowing other people will be there and the place will feel alive.
Unstructured but available activity seems to be the unifying theme for the location attractions of our own pasts. I don’t have a perfect solution but identifying the issues seems to be a step, at least.
Indeed. Not saying that adult women don’t face sexist harassment and that that isn’t a problem to solve, but kids shouldn’t be on social media in the first place. Not to mention that social media is 90% bots anyway. The majority of the blame here falls on the parents.
Why should we police the victims instead of the perps???
Because it’s easier to monitor your children’s use of the internet than to remove dumb men, hateful men, and bots from the internet?
Just because one thing is more difficult to do than another doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
Ban those men and their IP addresses off every social media possible.
It isn’t really that easy to monitor or control one’s children’s use of the internet. They’re smart and can be good at figuring out ways to get what they want; more so as they get older. It’s better to stay aware of what they’re likely exposed to, and talk to them and prepare them to recognize harmful things and avoid them.
Now that you say that… I do agree. But at the same time, I wouldn’t want my daughter to be exposed to gross misoginy in the first place. That kind of thing affects someone deeply, especially teenagers, I think. I wouldn’t want my son to be exposed to it either. Not sure what to do. I’m relieved they are far from reaching that age, yet I’m aware that time will come.
What if we stopped making it profitable to be a hateful guy on the internet by removing the monetization of drama and rage and stopped making contention a career?
Yea, fully agree with that.
But until then, don’t leave your children on their own.
The best success I had on a personal level was actually understanding and learning what the internet culture was like for young people and engaging with the children in my family on their level about the actual shit they were seeing, even friending them on their social media in case they ever wanted help.
Having casual and funny conversations about “the Redpill” and incels with my teenage nieces was massively helpful as the trend was rising, talking about the things they would encounter online and the things people say, and why they say it. Their parents had no idea what was going on with their internet lives, but I made a real effort to always be there and listen to their stories and give actual, actionable advice that wasn’t “Oh sweetie, the internet isn’t real, just turn it off when people act like that” like so many gen-X/millenial parents did, which made kids feel ashamed to talk about their emotional reactions to things they read and see online.
Of course they had problems with internet freaks, like all girls online, but they talked openly about it, they felt better about talking to an adult who understands the culture, and developed into very healthy adults with social lives (and tasers and pepper spray, each of 'em) but I really don’t know how to spread this as a “program” when so many parents lose track of youth culture because they’re too busy earning food and utility bills.
Thanks, I appreciate the tips.
NO ONE should be on social media in its current state.
Lemmy is social media, too.
The problem isn’t social media. The problem is profit-driven monopolies incentivized to promote high-emotion content. The problem, more generally, is monopolies that no one has hindered since 1974.
“Social media” generally implies an algorithm delivering monotized content, so Lemmy is not true social media.
It is media that is social, but it’s nonetheless very very very different.
We here are not:-).
Well, I’m self aware enough to acknowledge the irony here, but I will say that I’d rather be on Lemmy than reddit.
Plus capitalism is currently being run by a global pedophilia cabal who owns the media, so there’s that as well.
Read the article instead of the headline ✅👍
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holy shit these comments
lemmy users stop being individualist-brained, victim-blaming misogynists challenge: IMPOSSIBLE
you don’t stop misogyny by just ignoring it you twats, and hot take, mainstream social media being filled with nothing but privileged assholes being bigots (because all the good people were told to just go somewhere else 😇) is not good, actually!
I mean this is why I stopped using social media 10 years ago. Bunch of nonsense drivel, everyday.
I’m not victim blaming, this shit shouldn’t happen, but if you are on a platform and that platform has shit moderation and you keep seeing content you don’t like, well, maybe you should leave that platform? I mean this is why we all left reddit, right?
If I walk into a wall once, then it’s an accident. If I keep walking into it, then I’m just stupid.
Genuine question: What do you categorise this comment as, other than you using social media?
I don’t consider Lemmy or other message style boards as social media.
We aren’t posting pictures of ourselves or posting updates of our lives on here. We don’t use our real names(or I hope we don’t).
Please define social media for me, because it seems like everyone’s take on it is “a website where you interact with others”, which is way too broad and I would say that applies to the entire internet then, which is a slippery slope.
*Edit, another post linked the “Social Graph” which I think encapsulates what social media is vs. what it is not.
Please define social media for me
I guess my take is anywhere people interact with others in a conversational way, yes. You can see a timeline of posts, you can comment and reply, etc. You can’t do that on 99% of websites or apps. You can’t do it on your banking app or your weather app or your insurance website, etc. The lines blur around things like Wikis where you can chat with people on talk pages.
Limiting “social media” to places you post pictures of yourself rules out most earlier forms of social media before that became a thing, but looking back you wouldn’t say twitter wasn’t. The Wiki link you gave also links to “list of social media websites”, which includes Reddit, as a directly opposing point.
I don’t think it’s clear-cut, and I know different people have different opinions.
Personally I didn’t consider Reddit as social media 10+ years ago, but in the last few years it has definitely become social media, and I would attribute that to the Social Graph concept.
Right now, I don’t consider Lemmy or other link aggregators(Piefed) as social media, same for PeerTube as that is more of an entertainment/video sharing platform that isn’t focused on a social aspect. And I guess Matrix wouldn’t be social media for me either because I see it as a chat platform where you can be social, but the focus isn’t on sharing personal details of yourself. But I would consider Mastodon and PixelFed as social media and their focus is on pure social interactions. Which I guess I don’t know if I consider YouTube to be social media either at that point.
Maybe I’m hyper-fixating on the “media” part of “social media”. But again, I think clear and concise definitions of these types of sites need to be created BEFORE laws are in-place, because it seems that everyone is focusing on whether or not a website or service has “social” functions, which again, is a slippery slope.
I keep falling into the same trap as well, when telling people I quit using “social media” but am very much active on social media platforms - just not the ones controlled by big tech.
Maybe we need a shorthand for “profit-driven algorithm-controlled influencer cesspools” so we can separate it from “non-profit decentralized social media platforms” like Lemmy and Mastodon?
It’s called the Social Graph. Platforms that implement a social graph are social media.
The fact that people don’t know this basic, fundamental mechanism is the problem. Even the technologically inclined haven’t been able to make this simple distinction.
People think “social media” means a place for people to be social. That’s not it. Social media is specifically platforms that implement the social graph and/or similar types of algorithms that are designed to manipulate sociological relationships.
Traditional message boards are not social media because there is no algorithm. In the past reddit wasn’t social media because it technically did not have a social graph. It was a simple aggregrator with comment sections. That alone does not make social media. reddit does have a social graph now. That’s when it became social media.
Lemmy doesn’t have social graph algorithms.
The social graph is quite possibly one of the most dangerous inventions the 21st century and nobody talks about it. Yet it rules your entire life. It’s what makes the world turn. It’s what is dictating cultures and societies. It’s what is determining what goes viral. It determines the daily headlines.
While I completely agree with you on all arguments about the dangers of algorithm-based platforms where eyeball count and time spent in apps (ad revenue) are the primary reasons behind their very existence, I disagree on your definition for the term social media.
I tried to find some sources for your definition, but for example the Wikipedia article on social graphs define Facebook as an online social network (although it also calls it a social media platform).
Judging by the list of social networking services, the definition (at least on Wikipedia) seems to lean towards “any site where you can add people as friends” (thus building the social graph you refer to).
Personally, I think that term fits better with your description (platforms based entirely on a social graph), while online social media is a broader term describing any online medium on which we socialize with other people - graph-based or not. Old-school forums and chat rooms included, even if we didn’t call them that back then.
Hey thank you for the term drop! I haven’t heard of “social graph” and it falls into my “feelings” of what social media has been for me(or what I hate about it(algorithms)). I am definitely a “one in ten thousand” today for this.
Maybe, but I’ve definitely seen people disagree about what constitutes social media - e.g. some thing youtube is or isn’t, other people lemmy/reddit are or aren’t, it seems pretty inconsistent. Maybe it’s a generational thing?
In this sense, yes to Reddit and YouTube. YouTube may not be very social but it clearly has an algorithm that pushes toxic content/stereotypes.
And im going to say no on Lemmy. Lemmy may be social but there’s no algorithm pushing toxic content. Maybe I’m missing it but there’s seems to be very little toxic content.
You’re saying the criteria for being called “social media” include, “must be toxic” and “must be algorithmically-driven”?
Maybe this is an age thing and language has changed (I’m old in Internet years) but to me, “social” implies the opposite of those things - friendly interaction and organic connection.
I’m saying the term is somewhat nebulous, with lots of gray area but also an objective definition would not answer the question.
People do disagree on what constitutes social media, and even apply it inconsistently to themselves. So let’s not pretend there is a clear definition. Language isn’t always cleanly defined so we can understand what “social media” is based on context
No. All walls should be padded because we assume everyone is going to walk into them…
So suicide, then? That’s your suggestion?
That’s not what they said at all.
Keep walking into that wall bud.
holy shit these comments
Lemmy is no better than reddit and other large platforms broadly when it comes to being an insular community of tech-focused young guys with horrific sexual insecurity.
Despite the wallpaper that it’s supposed to be further left than other sites, just about every online community is going to have a large share of “incel adjacent” shut-ins, as they are the segment most likely to keep a forum or website active. I’ve seen all the same rotten sentiments across Lemmy about women as I’ve seen deep in the trenches of the gender-wars during gamergate, it’s just usually softened with some disclaimer.
a large share of “incel adjacent” shut-ins, as they are the segment most likely to keep a forum or website active
“But not me, I’m different even though I’m here too!”
This user:
Lol proves my point.
I’ve been a social media moderator and it’s an awful, thankless, volunteer job. And I think objectively we kept our community very tightly focused on our narrow topic and civil. But we’d have never gotten to that point without a ton of help from the community itself. We outlined our vision and had clear, reasonable guidelines, so it was very easy to determine if something was against the rules to report.
But this was a special interest subreddit, and it was a constant battle. I made sure that every ruling and interaction I made had thoughtful intent. I had to step down because it was making me legitimately depressed.
I could never fault a moderator for being overwhelmed, especially for a community as chaotic as instagram. For these large, general purpose communities, it’s impossible to police directly. It truly takes the whole community to enforce and report bad behavior.
So no, you shouldn’t blame the victims, but you have to understand it’s a massive systemic problem with no easy solution. The best advice you can give really is “Take care of yourself, and avoid problematic communities.”
How do you propose stopping it?
The people who propose “age gating” social media are essentially advocating the end of Internet anonymity and privacy for us all. After all, you can’t effectively determine one users age or identity without collecting them all.
Is removing digital privacy really something we want to be flirting with? Especially in the era of Palantir, Flock, and the Trump Administration?
Democracy, freedom of speech, and privacy are all related.
Without privacy, one can’t have freedom of speech because bad actors and authoritarians in power can and will silence critics. Without freedom of speech, one can’t live in a democracy, because having the ability to organize and speak out against those in power without fear of persecution is the basis of democracy.
Maybe I’m just more cynical than most, but I don’t see the elimination of all privacy on the Internet as a good solution for something that can otherwise be managed by basic parenting and personal agency.
We are fools if we willingly give the corporate oligarchs that control mainstream social media (and, by extension, Trump) our full real identities in a futile attempt to “think about the children”.
educating men and boys, and actually moderating misogyny (and other bigotries) would be a good start, how many reports of horrific posts end up with “after careful examination by our moderation team, we have found that this post does not violate our community guidelines…”
Requiring large social media platforms to regulate and moderate hateful speech would be a start. Big tech has been largely dropping the ball in this regard.
Cases-in-point, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads), X Corp (the App Formerly Known As Twitter) and Alphabet (YouTube.)
X’s Grok AI has been used to generate millions of sexualised images. Sometimes women get objectified and undressed without their knowledge nor consent by people promoting Grok. Sometimes the victims are minors. The fact that X hasn’t been shut down speaks volumes about how much billionaires have been able to get away with crap that would land anybody else behind bars for a long time.
YouTube… Have you also noticed more hateful content being posted to the platform. This isn’t an example that I think I can link to here, but there is a far-right ragtime musician called Foundring who was previously banned from the platform years ago for hate speech. Either due to ban evasion or his ban being lifted, he came back two years ago and recently started posting piano covers of old vintage ragtime and folk music from the late 18th Century. One of his videos, which contained the word “N*****” in the title (yes, hard-R) got catapulted by the YouTube algorithm and is currently sitting at 1.2 million views. It’s 37 days old and still up.
Is removing digital privacy really something we want to be flirting with?
Digital privacy and anonymous posting are two different things.
I would argue that they’re closely related.
Imagine a circumstance in which you have to use your real ID to sign up for a social media site which happens to be owned by a billionaire oligarch with close ties to an out-of-control fascist authoritarian president with no reservations about pulling whatever string he can to maintain his grip on power, and I think you’ll understand why.
You may know my user name, but really not too much else about me, because of the partial anonymity of having a username which is loosely coupled to my real life identity.
If we lived in a world where we could trust our government or the corporations that control mainstream social media, then maybe it wouldn’t be an issue. We don’t.
Imagine a circumstance in which you have to use your real ID to sign up for a social media site
You’re setting up a false premise. It doesn’t have to be done that way.
I don’t think I am. How else do you verify a person’s age?
So far the options seem to be:
- AI video facial recognition (privacy nightmare)
- Government ID verification (privacy nightmare)
I suppose you could use a credit card transaction, but so far nobody seems to be going that route.
Regardless, ALL of this shit is a poor substitute for decent parenting.
Way I see it there are two productive paths to take here:
- Start trying to convince women that privacy does in fact matter. Use examples like the menstruation tracking apps potentially being used to identify abortions to illustrate this point.
- Try to relate to the men here on Lemmy and find a way to cooperate. You’ve got a largely fresh population of men here who don’t actually hate women, but have spent years in education being told they are dangerous rapists waiting to happen, or were treated as defective women by their teachers. They need good male role models and women who will treat them with respect, so that they can climb out of the pit without leaving the better parts of themselves behind.
An utterly unproductive use of your time would be trying to fight misogyny on oligarch-owned platforms. You will never win because they find this content useful, as it divides workers and wastes their time and social energy. Just get out, and help others do it too.
Yeah, “just stop using social media” is an insanely stupid take that misses the point so hard it makes you wonder how someone distorted their perception so hard that they can even react that way.
“Stop using social media” is literally the only real solution because oligarchs will never again risk letting us actually connect with each other. You stay on “social” media and you will just be getting run in circles by engagement algorithms and bots.
You cannot save Facebook, Instagram, X, or Reddit because their owners will not allow you to.
No, it’s not. It might seem impossible for society to improve, but that is the solution, and talking about it without telling people to just avoid certain avenues is the only way to that end.
“Social media” is not society; it’s a series of platforms built by billionaires for the purpose of control.
Filled with people expressing opinions. I don’t understand how this could possibly be controversial or difficult to grasp.
You’re literally pretending social media isn’t real or doesn’t matter as long as you just do the right thing and ignore it instead of addressing the horrible ideas spread on it.
I don’t understand what you’re failing to grasp. You see what you’re allowed to see. They are signal boosting shit heads while suppressing everyone else. If your message begins to spread, they will just pull the platform out from under your feet.
How do you propose to win on billionaire-owned social media when they can just kick your legs out at will the moment you stand too tall for their good? Look at all the Reddit protests that amounted to nothing besides getting moderators booted from their subs, they’re a perfect example of this.
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Top three read article btw. Shilled by the same people who will soon have a track of you everywhere you do or go. You won’t even have a permission to fart without paying the fine.
15- y old girl. Most likely written by a 40 y old who can’t understand how parenting works. If you are a failure it doesn’t mean the rest of population now needs to be enforced in id links and checks and give away their right to privacy. Fucking dumbasses
Using social media has ruined my self-esteem and my relation to being a girl in this world, and nearly every day I feel hatred towards my gender, my appearance, or even teenage boys as a category. The misogyny I see from boys my age online, which is echoed in real life too, has made me grow resentful and bitter towards them, as much as I try to avoid it. As wrong as it is, I persistently find myself considering if there are truly any boys out there who are not misogynistic to some extent, and have even questioned whether I can find love in the future because of this. I understand that boys are victims of harmful content, as well as perpetrators of online misogyny – they’re growing up learning how to do this from the adults who post misogynistic videos first. But even so, I feel such a strong divide now between girls and boys in my generation, especially when the way they talk about us in real life mirrors the way they do on the internet.
That’s fucked up.
That level of misogyny is definitely learned, but it’s not just her age group. I’m floored by (for example) some comments my Dad makes, a “quiet, respectful, classy” type guy who’s never had a Facebook or Insta, who’d you’d never expect to hear insults from. And it’s definitely worse after he watches Fox News… that shit is like a drug.
My school “friends” dropped my jaw, sometimes. They got a lot from their parents, but social media (Faceboook back then) absolutely made it worse.
Even here on Lemmy, the disrespect or casual sexism from commenters sometimes makes me want to throw up. Not that I’m a particularly standup guy or anything, but the longer I live, the more I wonder “the fuck happened to my sex?” I certainly can’t critique this girl for wondering the same thing.
Delete TikTok and Instagram for starters.
This is simple advice for an adult who isn’t mired in the drama of high school. For most teens, these apps are how they socialise, how they share information and learn what is cool or uncool. Deleting the apps means you have cut yourself off from the social system and have made yourself a social pariah.
An equivalent for the millennials and gen Xers would be not having Facebook as a teen. It meant not being invited to parties because Facebook was the only platform people used to plan events. No one was going to seek you out individually because it was assumed you were on Facebook and would see the updates.
I agree that social media is harming all of us, but telling teens to just not use it ignores what it was like to be a teenager.
Facebook didn’t exist when Gen X was in highschool, likely all of them had been through college.
Not sure why you were downvoted, but you’re correct - I’m a late Gen Xer, and Facebook launched several years after I finished grad school - and didn’t become mainstream for another few years.
MySpace was started only one year earlier than Facebook. So, basically, the social media online that I knew before then were forums (like car forums that still exist).
I was a teen with social media. Not using it is totally valid advice. But simply saying “don’t use it” is like telling a smoker “don’t smoke”
I route my ig through matrix via https://beeper.com/ so I don’t have to open the app, so people can also still dm me.
Let me guess the solution before reading the article - some form of weakening to digital privacy.
Yep: “A social media ban for under-16s might prevent young boys seeing endless content that treats women with contempt and hate. Boys at this age are very susceptible to the cool and funny framing of what is, in reality, relentless misogyny. A ban might not fix the problem, but it would help. If society can’t stop it, it can show it disapproves.”
Essentially, this article is an argument to introduce online ID, and I disagree with that on a fundamental level.
The soil misogyny has dug it’s roots into is the iniquity we created while seeking equity. It was done for the best of reasons, but now we see the price. That’s not a problem we can solve easily, and certainly not via creating state spying infrastructure.
We have mostly 50-80 year old Republicans pushing to strip women of rights and somehow misogyny is all the internets fault? This is a deep societal problem that can’t be fixed by internet law.
The internet just lets the terrible people be terrible with some anonymity in doing so. It allows the rancid to hang their butts out for all to see without facing societal consequences. In short, it’s a megaphone for the problems we have.
Word it like that, the guardian has some pretty authoritarian leaning shit.
The main pieces of the article don’t read like fabricated and are possibly genuine; however, the last part about the ban might be an deliberate attempt to manipulate the reader using emotional baggage after reading the main section. It may aswell be injected there by the Guardian, and its probable the author didn’t even think about the bans.
This yet again is ageism in a nutshell. The Guardian has completely invalidated the authors claims, just because they are a minor. This is where humanity is going: misogyny, ageism, and deliberate injection of stories with malicious intent.
We used Fox News to enrage parents who raised kids to be misogynists and racists. We must ban the internet!
Sexual equality has ceased to exist online. It’s absolutely fine for boys to have sex, but when girls do, they are called worthless and referred to as objects.
This isn’t new. I’m a man in my mid 40s and the disparity between how promiscuous men are viewed as compared to promiscuous women has existed for as long as I’ve been sexually aware, and well before.
Obviously that doesn’t make it okay. I also have no idea what the solution might be. There have been a few cultural efforts to normalize the idea of women enjoying and seeking out sex but none of them seem to really reach the people that need to hear it.
I do find it oddly paradoxical that men who make it very clear that they are actively seeking sexual partners would disparage women for being sexually active.
I do find it oddly paradoxical that men who make it very clear that they are actively seeking sexual partners would disparage women for being sexually active.
They don’t want experienced, knowledgable, self-confident partners. They want naive young women they can gaslight and abuse.
They don’t want experienced, knowledgable, self-confident partners. They want naive young women
You’ve obviously never lived with the aftermath of dating worn out, bitter and combative women who have been traumatized by their numerous “experiences.” Men like inexperienced women precisely because they want to mold her and give her her first experiences. Also, “experienced” women are more likely to be single moms.
Boy, this thread is just loaded with reprehensible takes and dudes telling on themselves.
Let’s take a moment. I want you to understand that the opinion you offered is precisely what the OP article references. More than that, the opinion you offered is factually wrong.
I would like you to hear from me - an anonymous poster - the most likely outcome (of that opinion you offered) is a lonely, sad, and bitter existence for you.
Your preferences for certain kinds of women are yours, and yours alone. I wish you luck in finding a woman that fits your preference. However if you truly believe in that opinion, i strongly recommend seeking professional help.
🤮🤮🤮
Your comment actually made me feel sick. Please go re-evaluate where this toxicity in your life has come from.
Hint: it’s not women
Your intolerant ad-hominem post offers no constructive rebuttal of a good-faith argument and should be deleted by the mods.
The audacity and hypocrisy required to accuse others of intolerance after writing such misogynistic claptrap is staggering
Your blithe refusal to engage my constructive rebuttal of your uneducated and intolerant opinion (linked here for your convenience) renders this pearl-clutching statement irrelevant.
My posts are almost always based on logic. I do not engage in insult posts, like you did.
Appeal to the high road. What a child.
Imagine posting this and thinking it sounded okay.
Ew
Experienced men are more likely to be dead beat dads. See how this works?
I was gonna say unpopular opinion, but maybe not…
disengage from social media. It is not reality. not only that, but it perpetuates itself, and the oligarchy that created it. Go out and meet people in the real world. This is comming from an autistic person with minimal patients for other people. Seriously, ditch social media; it’s poison, and when it dies (which it will if people like you leave) these toxic peope you encounter will have to face the real world.
Social media like everything else takes personal responsibility. I have an IG and it’s full of yummy desserts, puppy videos, my bands and pics of my kids so my parents can see.
It’s up to everyone what they do on social media and what they consume, just like television, don’t just watch porn, Fox News and trash tv, and say it’s TVs fault. It’s a medium like everything else, stay away from the crazies and if you can’t handle it don’t use it
I can confirm this. Kill your television rings true.
But the social media affect all those people in reality sadly, they normalize this crap and embolden it
Yep, some is a shitplace, that only shows you very sterotypical things about the world around you, through very disective algorythms. It learns you about how small the world is, how we all are the same. When we are not! Humans are complex individuals the world is huge. That is social medias first lie. But you are in fact all just numbers to them. Social media, reduces us to numbers.
It’s not only misogyny.
Social media absolutely removes the inhibitions of just about all kinds of assholes, builds pat-each-other-on-the-back support groups for them by putting them together with like minded assholes and then algorithmically shovels all that shit on everybody else because anything that elicits strong emotions means more clicks and anger from being offended is one such emotion.
By the way, this also applies to unhealthy gender expectations on males (including misandry), though this being The Guardian I expect this is about the UK, which IMHO (having lived there and also elsewhere in Europe) is a country with serious problems when it comes to gender expectations around women and insidious “benevolent” sexism (“benevolent” not because it’s good but because it follows the whole “women are fragile creatures” and subsequent subtle disemplowering of women “to protect them” or because “they’re emotional creatures”) which far too often taints the articles in The Guardian because they’re very much from the British upper-middle class Acceptable Feminism, which tends to underestimate the strength of women and favor “protection” “solutions” over empowerment and agency.
So whilst I absolutely believe in all of this and in misogyny online being very bad, especially in certain countries, the choice of focusing on misogyny rather than as a whole in the problem of social media’s Profit Driven amplification of societal dysfunctions in general, is very much a typical privileged British Upper Middle Class “Third Wave Feminist” perspective and choice.
Social media absolutely removes the inhibitions of just about all kinds of assholes, builds pat-each-other-on-the-back support groups for them by putting them together with like minded assholes and then algorithmically shovels all that shit on everybody else because anything that elicits strong emotions means more clicks and anger from being offended is one such emotion.
If anyone uses the word “female” to refer to women/girls, they instantly disqualify themselves from any right to be taken serious. Those people need a psychotherapist.
I think it depends a bit on how multicultural an environment is. In a lot of places (including here), for plenty of people English isn’t their first language. I have seen ‘Female’ used on bathroom signs several times. The focus should be on intention, not language.
Might want to cancel Strong Bad then…
i suppose it shouldn’t be surprising but these comments sure are proving the articles point. i guess blaming the people being oppressed is a lot easier than blaming or even actually acknowledging the systemic oppression when you’re a brickheaded fascist, especially when you’re unaffected by/benefiting from it
I fell the problem is also how social media platforms promote ragebait content. If you are enraged by a post, you will tend to react more, thus spending more time on the platform. I am not saying misoginy and racisme does not exist, but i experience it way more often on social media than IRL. Leaving social media won’t cure these shitty behaviours, but it will help her feel less endangered
i agree with some of what you’re saying but not the experiencing more harassment on social media than you do IRL part. i don’t mean to invalidate your anecdotal evidence in any way but marginalized people have always used the internet as a way to connect with eachother and have a safe space away from the harassment they face IRL. and i also don’t face nearly as much harassment IRL than i do online but that’s because i don’t feel safe being me IRL unless around an extremely select few people. but if i was going around proudly exclaiming who i am the way i am online then i would definitely face MORE harassment in person than i ever have IRL.
feeling disheartened and unhappy about being a girl. When nearly every comments section on a video of a girl my age is filled with disgusting and objectifying comments about her body from boys, it causes me to feel deeply uncomfortable in my own body, and compare myself to her
this hits home for me. I have a near 14 year old daughter and this is the struggle I see with her constantly.
It’s not that she’s particularly non-binary/trans/androgynous, it’s that she’s ashamed/embarrassed to be a girl or be perceived as one. She still likes many traditional feminine things, (ie hair/nails/makeup, romance novels, cutesy characters, etc), and she has no real desire for any kind of masculine interests…
It’s as though being a woman is inferior. It’s “girly”. And that’s what is being internalized. And part of that, I think, is also the culture’s post-ironic loathing for authenticity. Ala, being passionate or earnestly enjoying something is seen as being “cringe”. So, being a girl, who likes girly things, is cringe.
I think both of these things ratchet the internalized misogyny. With the former being what turns the ratchet.
boys are never refered to as males?
that’s your takeaway from this?
The term “female” has been used to subtly degrade women in misogynistic circles and conversations for a long time. I’m struggling to believe this is a new concept for most people, but in case you’re being sincere, you can read more about this here..
It’s not that it’s a new concept. It’s that boys definitely are referred to as “males”. In years past it was probably more common than hearing “females”, though recent trends (incels) have likely changed that. It’s a nitpick that stuck out to me also, but it’s a small point from a more important larger point being made by a 15 year old. Maybe someone should have caught that in editing, but it shouldn’t be a big deal. And we can afford to give the kid that much leeway.
The study you linked doesn’t include the text of the study?
Sure, that’s off.
She’s 15. Take the value out of the article.
maybe. the fact the first sentence has to be translated is just part of it and im definately one who needs the translation. when I see odd things I get skeptical about the whole thing.
Abhorrent to hear such a young person having to deal with this. It gets easier as you grow older, but it never stops being a vile state of things. Nobody should have to grow ‘thick skin’ to just participate, as wonderful aspects of their personality can die with it.
The gut reaction is to point to the easy and straightforward option, to just leave. But in the end this doesn’t solve anything. This is exactly how many safe spaces die, on top of it blaming victims. Once abusers are let in and tolerated, the victims will start leaving if they can. And eventually, the space is no longer that of the victims, but that of the abusers. This happens with nazis at a bar, smokers at restaurants, assholes on the road, unruly people in the train. It leads to a society where everyone nice just sits at home because that’s ultimately the last safe place left.
The hard truth is that the group that doesn’t take a stand and accepts in the abusers, is the only place we can look at for a solution. But there’s no easy way to get to them often. If they let it get this far, it’s essentially pointless. (The big social media platforms for sure). I think the only real alternative is to build alternative safe places. Reach out to friends and other victims. Let them know there is another place where they can actually feel safe. But it will be hard and grueling. At first it might seem like you are alone, that nobody shares your grievances. But it takes time. Years even. You might get assholes trying to get in anyways, that have to be harshly rejected to keep the spirit alive. You might get sabotaged from outside. It’s tough - but as far as solutions go, it’s a real one.
I consider Lemmy one of these places. And I think it’s very important for anyone to realize they’re in a community built on those grounds. It must always be protected with full force. From the smallest friend group, to the biggest of governments. Even when that’s hard to do.
Imagine if TikTok automatically tagged all content with #misogyny, #racism, #sexism and so on. And then published monthly reports on society trends. Like “In Feb 2026 racism went down 12%, misogyny went up 5%”. I think it would be incredibly insightful and helpful.
While article tries to promote social media ban for under 16s, I strongly believe its just a way to sweep the problem under the rug. I think much more reasonable approach is to recognize those trends and deal with them through education and better parenting.
This isn’t social media, it’s social acid, dissolving and corroding everything.
