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.
The age verification debate misses the real point. These commercial algorithms are harmful for everybody.
The identity verification debate is the point and it is the only reason this article exists in the first place.
These commercial algorithms are harmful for everybody.
Also true.
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?
No. All walls should be padded because we assume everyone is going to walk into them…
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.”
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:
Maybe I’m not seeing the victim blaming comments, but I do see a lot of “individual responsibility” posting. It sucks when people do that because they are right, just about the wrong thing. Like, veganism. Definitionally the most moral way to consume food, and one of the healthiest, but does absolutely nothing to disrupt factory farming. Getting off social media is amazing for your mental health. It also does nothing to address the issue; if every Lemmy user dropped Instagram, Meta literally would not even notice. It would do nothing to pressure them to fix their own platform, let alone advance the dismantling of patriarchy. So yes. Drop socials. If anything, women are; most platforms are at best 2:1 men to women. But to see people posting like that is the solution to the systemic issue is disappointing.
Systematic issues aren’t any one person’s responsibility, and those who thing it is, tend to be violent assholes.
All we can do as individuals is be responsible for ourselves. We are not responsible for other people.
However, the parents are responsible for this 15 year old girl. She is not responsible for herself as she is not an adult.
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…”
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
Yeah. I have a feeling that stopping it is, somehow, not desirable to a portion of the commentors.
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.
I’m constantly baffled by the amont of misogyny some Lemmy users through around if the topic is even slightly about women.
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.
boys are never refered to as males?
Misogyny sells, apparently. Sex also sells. That is precisely why we allow everyone on the Internet and social media to post pornography. Oh, wait: we don’t. If there is as much as half a nipple on display, takedowns start buzzing about, bans come down faster than lightning bolts, and you are out of an account faster than you can say Freedom of Spee…
If you can appease Moms for Jesus, you can create an environment where misogyny is not allowed. In general, we allow these algorithms to do all sorts of evil in the name of engagement, and maybe it’s time to put a stop to it. Maybe, for a change, we make the corporations liable for all consequences of their algorithmic posting. They’d pay more attention to what they push.
deleted by creator
Some thoughts:
- Social media encourages a herd mentality.
- Social media can distract you from learning and focusing.
- Social media can feed you disinformation or subject you to bullying.
- This applies doubly for algorithmically steered social media (where information gets pushed at you without your request).
- Algorithmic social media is good at getting engagement (conflict: just another form of engagement).
This is being done to earn someone profit, not to inform people but maybe entertain them a bit - but foremost, because someone buys advertisements on these platforms.
Courses of action:
- deal with the users? (carrot or stick?)
- deal with the companies?
Viability of different courses:
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Users are diverse and numerous. Dealing with them is a lot of work.
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The actions of malicious users may be an offense in some place, but not in another, and being rude is not an offense. Dealing with malicious users individually is feasible only in an environment where the general public is interested in peace of mind and orderly discussion. I have seen and still participate in such places. They are mostly non-profit forums wich a few clear administrators. Lemmy is an experiment in a similar direction. An algorithmically steered social media site run by a for-profit company… no, it does not fit this profile.
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Education of non-malicious users - how to choose a good environment and defend oneself and others in this environment - may be more effective. Users should be informed about what benefits them. They should know that “environment A has effective moderation, while environment B is a troll cave”. They should know that “environemnt A sends you information that you asked, while B pelts you with rage bait”. Who should educate people about the environments they can choose? Obviously, schools.
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Very large companies have to comply with EU DSA rules. They must show how they have effective moderation, prevent hateful content from propagating, are not harming minors, etc. I would prefer if all large companies were pressed towards effective moderation. It hurts their profit margin, but they must accept this is the price to pay for operating in a civilized society.
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A particularly blunt instrument, recently touted in several countries, is outright banning of all underage people from social media. This is highly controversial. To the companies it sends a message: “if you cannot create a safe environment, we will take your future customers away, full stop”. To others, it causes great inconvenience due to age verification, which is problematic. If age verification is in place, using social media for publishing something pseudonymously or anonymously becomes near impossible. I would not like that to happen.
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.
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 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, 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?
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.
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???
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.
The extent of apps promoting and amplifying this hate posting is a recent phenomenon, through the so-called algorithmic feeds. It all needs attacking.
Don’t use Instagram or TikTok
Yeah, in general, my answer to “I don’t like using Internet site X” is “well, don’t use that site.”
There are a vast number of sites out there. Use one that you like. I don’t have a very high opinion of lemmygrad.ml, but I deal with that by not going there.
“But TikTok is a big site!”
Okay. I don’t use Instagram or TikTok. I can assure you that it’s very possible to not use them.
“But my friends use Website X!”
Well, making the probably-reasonable assumption that the relationship is symmetric and they also use it because you do, that situation isn’t going to change unless someone decides to use something else.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Plus capitalism is currently being run by a global pedophilia cabal who owns the media, so there’s that as well.
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.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of the people here going “just don’t use social media then” are missing part of the point. Like, as she specifically mentioned, the misogynistic discourse happening online is also happening offline. Even if you yourself manage to avoid most online misogyny by not using social media, you’ll still be exposed to it through everyone else who is and all the people watching and reading stuff like Fox. It’s just kind of everywhere.
Part of the problem is that it’s a feedback loop. People use social media and somebody makes some misogynistic content which angers people which then gets the algorithm to promote it heavily. Then somebody else who’s inspired by that content makes their own misogynistic content and the cycle repeats. Once enough of that content is circulating it becomes the norm and a bunch of people start dogpiling on it to be part of the in crowd. It’s particularly pernicious when it’s being used to blame people’s problems on others which is how the incel and red pill groups got their start.
It’s not just the girls/women that need to get off these platforms, it’s the boys/men as well. Algorithms that reward anger and controversy are a significant part of the problem and really should be looked at to be regulated the same way gambling and addictive drugs are.
should be looked at to be regulated the same way gambling and addictive drugs are.
Yet here we are, still in the War on Drugs. Betting apps are exploding in popularity and being straight up paraded by politicians and business leaders.
I agree with the sentiment, but I don’t think the engagement feedback issue will be addressed directly. It’s too profitable. We’re cooked, for a while. So maybe we should reach for every half measure with a chance of passing, like restricting kids?
Exactly! Precisely. It’s affecting her real life, too.
That “just don’t use social media then” response in itself feels… misogynistic? This isn’t her choice; she can’t ignore the catastrophic effects.
It feels very reminiscent of “well don’t dress like that then”
Yup. And that’s bullshit. It’s way past the time we should be teaching boys how to NOT be misogynistic asswipes.
This isn’t her choice
Someone forced her to download the app, create an account, verify her email and phone number, then regularly open and scroll through the app???
Woah that’s messed up, we really should stop whoever is forcing her to do that.
the issue isn’t just that she’s reading and hearing these comments online, the issue is that teenage boys are doing so. social media has normalised this kind of behaviour to them, and they bring those views with them to the real world where girls will interact with them: school, sports clubs etc.
Gestures at Lemmy comments in this post. See what I mean?
We gotta stop this Lemmy from forcing her to do all that
I have been online since the 90s in mostly gaming spaces. Misogyny and racism feels like the default state.
Spaces that are able to rise out of that are exceptional.
Subheading:
Objectification, hate, rape threats: the politicians debating online abuse mean well, but to truly understand, they need to see what I see
No, they don’t.
This could be mitigated by switching to the fediverse and using an instance that only federates with instances that don’t tolerate this behavior.
Young people use social media to communicate with each other, their peers and friends and community.
You’re not getting high school kids to move to a backwater, low-traffic, unexciting platform to scroll a handful of forums of neurodivergent guys talking about linux.
This isn’t a technological problem as much as a sociological. It is a problem between people and needs to be solved between people.
It’s a chicken and an egg problem.
They will continue to suffer for not doing things right the first time until they learn from their mistakes.
I went into a bar and there were people drinking alcohol. I went to Lemmy forums and had a nice time. No one told the author that the environment influences the behavior? Has someone convinced the author these platforms aren’t predatory in LITERALLY every single way? Culture fail. Corporate win.
This is the most persuasive argument for restricting social media to adult use only that I’ve ever heard. Can’t even imagine how damaging this kind of shit is do a developing mind.
Edit: some places have restricted it to age 16, great- but honestly 18+ would be ideal
Okay, so tell that to the parents. It is their responsibility.
Is it just me, or does it feel out of place that the author described herself as “a 15-year-old schoolgirl”? I don’t think I’ve ever even heard that term outside of porn, and you wouldn’t describe her counterparts as a “schoolboy”.
