Link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/23/15-year-old-girl-misogyny-social-media-online-abuse

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.

Wait, are you the 15 YO or is it someone else? I just woke up, maybe my brain isn't focused yet.

And yet some politicians say the solution is to ban 15 year olds from social media, rather than police the platforms, algorithms and users. Please contact your representative and ask them to police the platforms, not bring in creepy ID checks.

This is an article written by an anonymous 15 yr old girl.

Yeah I eventually got it. Anyway, that is one example of many terrible things brought on by misoginy that is preached by tapeworms like Tate. They're afraid to lose their delusional manly power in the world. Fucking pathetic.

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.

Never understood how the solution to all platforms going to shit is making users upload their ID. This does neither fix the problem nor the symptom. I mean, I understand why it's done but not how people come to think this is a good idea.

The whole point of the algorithm is attention. Yeah, they could try to actually police it so coded versions of “kill yourself, ugly bitch” don’t spread, but that language works, and it makes the posters rich.

You can’t get around for “addiction for ad dollars” being the whole point. It’s always going to surface ragebait, trash talk or whatever because that’s what sells attention, no matter how hard it’s fought.

…So yeah. Policing isnt going to do anything. Don’t tell your representatives something that won’t work, and worse, has the “theatre” of helping.

I don’t know a good “solution” other than burning it all to the ground, but honestly, banning as many people as possible sounds like a good idea to me.

Have you ever considered not spending time on social media? Especially the types where randos can send you stuff? Ive tried to limit my kids on this as much as possible. They obviously would prefer I don't but I feel like it's the right thing to do.

A good nearly half of people use authoritarian thinking rather than have to put in effort to think for themselves even slightly.

Sheeple

How do you police someone you can't identify?

I mean, I understand why it's done but not how people come to think this is a good idea.

They are the same people who think "If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide. Only bad people need/want anonymity." They are also either childless or don't care about their child's online access and activity.

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.

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.

I very highly doubt the majority of dudes posting shit like that even use a vpn. Therefore they can be ifentified by IP.

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.

By closing the accounts? Facebook doesn't need to know who you are in real life to ban you.

To a certain degree I agree with the assessment - children (under-16 would be my definition here) shouldn't have full access to what we consider social media today.

Things were different 10, 20 years ago when it wasn't so centralised. You'd have independent forums, all with reliable moderation, and so on, plus with little to no ads, and the ad networks themselves were more inclined to not have inappropriate things shown, especially to children - basically all the "make your dick grow 7 foot long" and "8 cock hungry MILFs waiting for you in your area" type of ads were all relegated to porn sites to begin with.

Today? We have centralised social media with little to no moderation beyond basic keyword filtering, ad networks not giving a fuck about the content they push, and every single malicious actor having access to these platforms to further their agendas... Not to mention unfettered access to children by any and all accounts.

What IMO would be the best solution is to force social media sites to have a cordoned off "children" section where kids can socialise with their peers without predatory adults having any form of access to them. But that's easier said than done, unfortunately.

This problem has become so big and deep rooted, that we need multiple approaches over a prolonged period to rectify the exposure and impressions kids (below 16, maybe even 18) are subject to.

First and foremost, education in every layer: Adults, teachers and parents need to not only be aware of what the kids are (potentially) exposed to online, but be educational about how to perceive it. Blocking is not effective enough long-term (check out the failure of COSA).

Secondly, it's not the government's responsibility to surveil kids online, it's primarily the parents' responsibility! If you as a parent are unaware of your kid being hateful and a bigot online, you're part of the problem.

Thirdly, if we are to put any responsibility on the government, it is to mandate requirements for adults to become/remain parents. Just like we have a driver's license to protect the public from accidents impacting innocent lives, we should have something that protects society from having unworthy parents raising assholes and potentially also ruining innocents' lives (read suicide).

I'm tired of this, sorry for the rant. We need to step up. I'm painfully aware of what this 15 y/o girl has been exposed to, and I know of so much worse things easily available on the clear web, if not on social media.
Be the safety net your kid needs you to be, dear parents...

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.

I specifically limit my kid's socials to get friend groups, etc. I can't prevent everything, but I don't need that constant drone beating them down daily.

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.

mandate requirements for adults to become/remain parents.

What world that look like? Are you saying the state should intervene to prevent some people becoming parents? Because that never goes well.

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.

Pedophiles run the republicans in the US who actively protect people like the owner of these platforms…

You can’t get around for “addiction for ad dollars” being the whole point. It’s always going to surface ragebait, trash talk or whatever because that’s what sells attention, no matter how hard it’s fought.

Yes you can.

ID laws are about control. If you can't post anonymously the govt can track people who don't agree with them. Or LGBTQ+ people, or whoever the govt doesn't like.

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 algorithms in these social media services don't care about you actually wanting to watch the video or see the content in general, instead they hyperfixate on if you took 0.02 seconds longer before scrolling to the next one compared to the previous scrolls, to determine what should be shown.

For example, if your interests are exclusively in random gadgets and trinkets for example, but then it shows you a video of an onlyfans promotion, you may accidentally pause in confusion, then scroll, unknowingly triggering the algorithm to keep showing you onlyfans promotions despite you not wanting that.

And it’s the same if it’s offensive or triggering, the algorithm decides to keep showing you such content so it can stun you into staying in the app longer.

This is why I've decided to outsource my social media use to lemmy and geminispace BBS boards, because sure instagram can be enjoyable a lot of the time, but if you use it excessively, it’s damaging.

Also, pro tip: if you don’t use Insta for a month or so, it decides to show you the best content possible to try getting you hooked again, but once you get to a video which isn’t awfully enjoyable, close it and forget about it for another month. Mileage may vary but it works for me somehow, even if I’m likely to be AuDHD

Any platform with algorithmically-elevated content needs to be age-gated or regulated into destruction.

Plain and simple.

Why should we police the victims instead of the perps???

Unpopular opinion: just leave.

You're not going to make social media any less disgusting by staying there. Just leave it to incels and fascists.

I think the worst place I've seen recently was Spanish forocoche. Absolutely brain dead opinions, disgusting comments, depressing levels of stupidity. So I left. I took a look twice, saw how toxic it is and never went back. If you see Instagram is just toxic swamp why still visit it? Look for smaller, less stupid communities.

I mean, old forums were pretty messed up.

Your point stands though. The old internet isn't what the average person experiences, anymore.

What IMO would be the best solution is to force social media sites to have a cordoned off “children” section where kids can socialise with their peers without predatory adults having any form of access to them. But that’s easier said than done, unfortunately.

In real life, we call this school!

It can definitely be done. It's not difficult, it's just that the world is not heading in that direction.

Plus capitalism is currently being run by a global pedophilia cabal who owns the media, so there's that as well.

mandate requirements for adults to become/remain parents

This is commonly referred to as Eugenics.

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?

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.

We already have some measurements in place like the CPS. One can also lose the rights of custody after certain convictions. This is all reactive, however, and in many cases CPS comes under fire for "not doing enough".

This is all speculative on top of my head, and I expect a proper governmental implementation to be much more thought through and extensive than what I write here, but the gist of it I imagine is something like the following:

Before parenthood, one would need to take mandatory courses and a governmental theory test (like the test for driving) in order to be eligible to keep your child when it is born at a hospital. This is not meant to be particularly difficult, but to root out the worst, and to educate a bit through the courses.

All human births are to be registered, and when doing so, one can easily check the parents' records for things like violent behavior, neglect, conspiracies, etc.. This is where I assume most enforcements of this law. (A result of this would be even more children in children's homes, which is another discussion as a direct result of this. (Which the government also has the power to do something about, like creating subsidiaries for foster parents.))

After the child is born, there should be a wellness checkup at something like the age of 1, 3, 5, 10, and 15, to ensure physical and mental health is good. Both the parents and the child have to answer a questionnaire separately, and if there's reason for concern, queue CPS.

CPS is also underfunded in several countries already, from what I've heard around.

This is an example of where a death should never have been necessary to take action:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JBRHS5vErpg

Because that never goes well.

Could you refer me to some specific cases? I'm curious to learn. I have a feeling it's most likely due to improper implementation, being either too narrow or too fast. This is a potentially big societal change, and needs time - years - for a proper adaptation.

NO ONE should be on social media in its current state.

It's all random bullshit. Reality is just monkeys on typewriters. You can safely ignore it. Don't let it ruin your day.

It feels very reminiscent of "well don't dress like that then"

This isnwhere age verification and restrictions on social media for teens under 16 makes perfect sense to prevent this kind of thing.

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.

"I want to go out of my way to communicate with literally any random stranger from anywhere on the planet, sorted in a way that shows me the most controversial, sexual, and enraging content first, but also these random strangers should have to behave and talk the way I want that makes me feel comfortable"

??????

Like yeah, it would be great if everyone held hands and sang kumbaya and were nice to each other. But you're choosing to go to the public internet forum that is designed to maximize and amplify the shittiest opinions. Perhaps, stop making that choice?

I know this girl is just a child so this is really a parenting failure. Stop allowing your kids to communicate with literally any and every random stranger across the globe.

Of course, this article only exists as propaganda to push a narrative that the internet requires identity verification so that we can "protect kids" by not actually doing any parenting and instead monitor and track all other individuals on the internet.

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???

Yup. And that's bullshit. It's way past the time we should be teaching boys how to NOT be misogynistic asswipes.

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.

No, this is a propaganda article designed to push the narrative that the internet requires identity verification in order to "protect the children" and was written by an adult. Don't be stupid.

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!

Same where possible. But then they make new accounts, etc..