So suicide, then? That's your suggestion?

Yeah I've already read it. Feel free to use the report button however you choose, though. That's what it is there for!

They're addiction creating and brainwashing. I have believed for the last ten years that they should be illegal, and all feeds should be sorted chronologically or by popularity

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.

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.

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?

Nope. Read.

Lord of the Flies is fiction. It is taught for its artistic merit, not its applicability to the real world.

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.)

Meta changed their guidelines in the wake of Donald Trump's re-election to allow trans and non-binary people to be called "it", and for posts/comments branding them mentally ill.

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.

Just leave Earth?

Oh ok, great, so you've now learned the problem extends to real life, and the boys around her talk this way in person as well as online. So just quitting the entire Internet wouldn't help in the slightest. What's your apology gonna be like?

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?

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.

Yep. Apologies.

collectively shaming participants

That should suffice.
Laws/censorship are unnecessary.
Stupid opinions on the internet or in society aren't new.

So just quitting the entire Internet wouldn’t help in the slightest.

help

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/help

slightest

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slightest

So not voluntarily subjecting herself to internet abuse would ...not... improve the situation in at least the smallest way? Are you sure?

But the alternative mentioned doesn't exactly work. Even if your intention is to save your own children they will still be exposed, whether you k
Like it or not.

There are a lot of different things people can do, locally or otherwise:

• Demand accountability from platforms by way of pressure on your representatives. And no I don't mean age verification, I mean using some of their profits to better moderate content online.
• Support politicians who push for responsible social media.
• Get involved in your school's PTA or equivalent, and raise the issue, form a group with parents and teachers to learn about the issue and work on ways to tackle it.
• Reach out to organisations that are fighting against this problem and ask how you can support/get more involved.
• If appropriate, empower your kids, especially boys, to speak up and stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves. Teach your kids what behaviours are not ok and if they see those behaviours to act (whether that means speaking up or reaching out to adults to intervene).
• Stop giving money to irresponsible organisations who perpetuate the problem and instead start supporting companies that use ethical practices (though I acknowledge that's usually not simple nor cheap).
• If you're a man, support and/or get involved men's groups that are working to address the problem, especially through outreach programmes to young and vulnerable boys and men. If there isn't one, look to start one in your community.

Those are just some I could think of off the top of my head. Change doesn't happen overnight, it takes action from multiple people. But throwing our arms up and putting the responsibility on the victims alone (which doesn't even work) is not it.

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.

"There's a man screaming in my window and following me around when I leave my house telling me to buy his shit and that I'm his object to play with while I'm just trying to live my life. This harassment is affecting my mental health"

"Nope. Read."

Idiotic.

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.

That's not what they said at all.

At school, on the block, at work, everywhere out there, yes, girls and women were constantly dealing with this type of shit. Many still are. In cases of harassment, banning the harassed one is never the solution. We should rebuild our places differently instead, turn communities for all of us into fora where boys, girls and enbies feel equal participants, and adults help them kick the hell out of anyone who threatens, harasses or isolates them.

How often do you see or hear "male" used without any of the descriptors attached in casual contexts?

Describing guys with bullshit Greek-derived "personality type" adjectives still at least acknowledges they are human with some kind of personality, even if you're using one of the negative ones. And a few of them are even considered positive descriptors.

But the common use of the word "female" in informal contexts, without any other descriptors attached, does exactly what the article author says it does and isn't nearly as pervasive for men or boys.

they want you to donate but they don't require it to view articles.

I was an early Facebook user. I had an account from 2007-2018. The early years it seemed fun and Fairly innocent. I kept up with friends and saw funny posts. I could curate my feed to be things I wanted to see. When I left Facebook in 2018 it seems like the app was targeting me. Showing me things to rile me up. First I quit the mobile app. I deleted it and used a browser. Then I left Facebook altogether. A year ago I did a similar thing with Instagram. It was no longer a place curated to my interests. It’s horrible. I barely touch it anymore. Even Reddit is not my usual collection of posts that interests me. It’s why I’m on here! Everything is just so polarizing now. I have been able to cut way back and do my own thing. But at 15 friends are your world. Everyone is using the app. Everyone is speaking the speak. It’s so hard for them to disconnect.

The article is confusing. It implies she's posting and getting all these comments.

Letting their kids go on the Internet. Get the brats out of here.

I'm convinced it should be illegal to operate social media platforms for profit. It wouldn't solve all the problems, but it would make a dent.

What country are you from, where kids who are 15 are forbidden from free social media apps?

I've seen plenty of misogyny here on the threadiverse. It's not solved just by not using Instagram or TikTok.

Edit: it's in this very comment section, in fact.

Just wanted to chime in and say that you're part of the problem. That is all.

Did you hallucinate the word "school" or what? Both the article and post title just say "girl."

you don’t stop misogyny by just ignoring it you twats, and hot take, mainstream social media

Opinions aren't stopped.
They also don't need to be.
Trying to make individualism a put-down is pathetic.

We all have it in our power to ignore or use our voices to promote our messages with as much force as the messages we oppose.
That provocative ragebait engages more effectively than constructive dialog reflects a human failing & a need to work on ourselves.

Social media doesn't need to be good, and we don't need to keep using it.
The beauty of social media is we can be totally irredeemable "twats", victim-blame up the wazoo, and put out the most infuriating shit conceived until we realize it's all expression lacking substance & none it matters.
It's only when people start caring too much that we should be concerned for humanity.
They need to get a life or something, stop putting so much of themselves on words, images, & sounds on a screen.

I'm a whole cisgendered 30 year old male who games a bit too much, so I try to discourage misogynistic comments when they're made by people in games.

I think there's another layer to the misogyny where any form of "defending" women is seen as white-knighting or simping. You don't even have to be directly referring to comments about a specific person, but you'll still be labeled as a loser who likes women, for some reason.

No, actually I've provided the solution to the problem. You just didn't like it.

You're not going to save Instagram. The owners do not want you to save it and you do not control it. It was a lost cause before you even knew there was a problem.

Some systemic problems cannot be solved from inside the system.

Yep.

The primary problem is that 'the algorithm' amplifies all of our worst traits, to the extent that someone is not critical of what it is showing them.

Oh, and its also addictive.

Oh, and its also hugely profitable.

Its a giant ratking of feedback loops, and we really should just use Alexander's solution to knots.

The underlying biases and bigotry in humanity has ways of addressing and alleviating it.

But apparently, nothing is strong enough to defeat convenient, targeted, personalized reinforcement of basically, your Jungian shadow.

And its very much relevant that all of this is done to sell advertisements and establish brands, which themselves basically just are also selling you validation, a personality, opinions, 'facts'.

Its the fanciest Skinner Box that's ever been designed.

I read the article and found it poignant and interesting.

That said, why am I seeing this on !world@lemmy.world ? It is not about anywhere else in the world specifically and it is not even news.

I know that in the rules it says only opinion pieces are potentially removed, but the fact that this "needs" to be published here makes the problem two-fold:

1. it creates noise in the community where I would like to see news from anywhere else in the world than the US.
2. it means that who posted it here thinks there is no other community where this actually would fit? Looking at the crossposts the other 2 communities (Technology and WomensStuff) seem way more fitting.

Putting everything everywhere doesn't help communities grow. It just generates noise.

How often do you see or hear “male” used without any of the descriptors attached in casual contexts?

Honestly, only in the context of plugs, sockets & input/output cables in nerd circles, or in wildlife documentaries when describing animals in nature, to the point where I cannot read the word without hearing it in David Attenborough's voice.

That's besides the point though. I gave an example of men referring to themselves as males. If you couldn't already tell by my use of "lean six ligma", I'm kinda taking the piss out of the manosphere and its influencers like Andrew Tate.

But the common use of the word “female” in informal contexts, without any other descriptors attached, does exactly what the article author says it does and isn’t nearly as pervasive for men or boys.

TIL that Strong Bad is a misogynist.

This is the earliest example online I can find of a woman being referred to as a female, dating back to 2003. And it was literally from a Flash animated web series 23 years ago where the word was deliberately used as a rhyme to "email."

It's a weird term to use other than "woman" or even "girl" (but apparently that's problematic now, even though it's everywhere in pop music.) But honestly the red pill, incel and MGTOW circles have come up with a whole lot worse which I won't even repeat here.

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.

The problem is not the users who find the content harmful. The problem is with the policies of those platforms and their algorithms.

Still, yes, I also believe mainstream social media now does more harm then good.

"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.

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.

Keep walking into that wall bud.

And you feel the internet shouldn't have

rebuild [online] places differently instead, turn communities for all of us into fora where boys, girls and enbies feel equal participants, and adults help them kick the hell out of anyone who threatens, harasses or isolates them.

?

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.

police the platforms

No thanks.
The beauty of social media is the unrestrained assholery.
People just need to learn to cope & quit being fragile: skill issue.
Education & civic campaigns to promote social good are better approaches respecting our inherent liberties to piss people off.

Yeah, it is great advice. But I'm under no illusion that's happening anytime soon, not for most people.

The context matters. And in this instance “stop using social media” feels more like blaming the abused teenager while the rest of the world carries on, like its totally dismissive of what she's saying.

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.