> I am a 15-year-old girl.
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> I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day
The examples included here are horrible. Not just the sex-shaming, but that too.
I'm far from convinced that a social media ban is the answer, but the comment is still well worth reading - especially by men.
@neil
Important article. I highly recommend the "Men who hate women" book by Laura Bates.
It shows how the hate towards women is not accidental, but the result of an highly organized political project that uses it to gain power. No ban on social media would accomplish anything unless that machine is stopped.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Who_Hate_Women_(Bates_book)
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@osma @neil The difficulty one runs into is how you define social media. It seems obvious, but it really isn't once you dig into it. What actually counts as social media? Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc are all pretty obvious. Reddit, I guess. YouTube, presumably. Snapchat? WhatsApp? Yeah, maybe. Signal? Online forums? Usenet? Email lists? Anything where users can interact with other users? It gets tricky quite quickly.
Well, that's what my father did when raising me, and look how I turned out!
CC: @osma@mas.to @neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk -
> I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day
The examples included here are horrible. Not just the sex-shaming, but that too.
I'm far from convinced that a social media ban is the answer, but the comment is still well worth reading - especially by men.
@neil I wish I could say this article didn't read as I expected, that I was surprised by what it reports.
I remember some boys at school could talk like that. Everyone avoided them. Lads will be lads, we said. This was the nineties.
Decades on, that attitude has not only survived, it's been legitimised on an industrial scale, by algorithms, influencers and people in power.
Preparing my kids for this world, giving them the skills and fortitude needed to traverse it, is a helluva challenge.
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@osma @neil The difficulty one runs into is how you define social media. It seems obvious, but it really isn't once you dig into it. What actually counts as social media? Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc are all pretty obvious. Reddit, I guess. YouTube, presumably. Snapchat? WhatsApp? Yeah, maybe. Signal? Online forums? Usenet? Email lists? Anything where users can interact with other users? It gets tricky quite quickly.
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Nope. Social networks did that. Social media subverted it to sell advertising.
@CordiallyChloe @neil -
Nope. Social networks did that. Social media subverted it to sell advertising.
@CordiallyChloe @neil -
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@neil we've got to find a way to make society in general consider women as people rather than as objects.
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@jima @neil
Which communities? The "friends" are not friends most of the time, they are digital relations, they ignore you as soon as the conversation is finished.
If you want to be part of communitie, join a group in real life, with people taking care of each other, where real interaction with body language is much more rich than a digital one. -
> I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day
The examples included here are horrible. Not just the sex-shaming, but that too.
I'm far from convinced that a social media ban is the answer, but the comment is still well worth reading - especially by men.
15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day.
Disgusting is nowhere near strong enough for the contempt I feel for such stinking ignorant misogynist moronic excuses for male humans that write such crap.
I can sadly also assure only the media has changed not the content. When I went to school it was big mouth bragger words or scribbled on paper.
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@leiawelsh @passwordsarehard4 @darwinwoodka @osma @neil I also think that has a lot to do with the personalities involved. As a point of pride I wouldn't want my site/server/bar/ giving harbor to that garbage. Zuckerberg, Musk, et al have no such pride, they're fine with all this. At a point (hopefully) their userbase won't be ok with it anymore.
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@jima @neil
Which communities? The "friends" are not friends most of the time, they are digital relations, they ignore you as soon as the conversation is finished.
If you want to be part of communitie, join a group in real life, with people taking care of each other, where real interaction with body language is much more rich than a digital one.@PjpB @neil @rpbook As someone who first came online at 13, and made some lifelong friends (leading to family) early on, I take great exception to the characterization of online friends not being real friends.
Your experience of the Internet clearly does not align with mine (and others, hi Russell!), so please refrain from telling others how they should experience life — your way is not The Way.
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@PjpB @neil @rpbook As someone who first came online at 13, and made some lifelong friends (leading to family) early on, I take great exception to the characterization of online friends not being real friends.
Your experience of the Internet clearly does not align with mine (and others, hi Russell!), so please refrain from telling others how they should experience life — your way is not The Way.
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@PjpB @neil @rpbook As someone who first came online at 13, and made some lifelong friends (leading to family) early on, I take great exception to the characterization of online friends not being real friends.
Your experience of the Internet clearly does not align with mine (and others, hi Russell!), so please refrain from telling others how they should experience life — your way is not The Way.
And ha ha, sorry @neil if that felt like I was ignoring your functional +1; I felt like it went without saying when I wrote it but while I was already replying to your toot, I'd tagged @rpbook in on my reply because I wanted to include them in the continued discussion but didn't want to reply to their toot directly (as if I was calling them out), and then after the fact it felt rude to exclude you.
Because, you know, I consider you a friend. Weird, right?
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And ha ha, sorry @neil if that felt like I was ignoring your functional +1; I felt like it went without saying when I wrote it but while I was already replying to your toot, I'd tagged @rpbook in on my reply because I wanted to include them in the continued discussion but didn't want to reply to their toot directly (as if I was calling them out), and then after the fact it felt rude to exclude you.
Because, you know, I consider you a friend. Weird, right?
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> Men won’t fix this because it’s not broken for men
Some men might make no effort.
Some men may intentionally fight to keep the status quo.
Neither is really the audience of my toot (even if they might also benefit from it).
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This doesn't address any of the issues from the article in The Guardian. All those problems existed online on usenet and irc. Long before any company even considered making money from social interactions on the Internet.
Facebook, Twitter, et al are bad companies, but banning them is not going to fix any of the underlying issues.
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> I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day
The examples included here are horrible. Not just the sex-shaming, but that too.
I'm far from convinced that a social media ban is the answer, but the comment is still well worth reading - especially by men.
@neil It is truly awful online for anyone with a remotely feminine profile
I've had a lot of crap online over the years & I'm not a teen & never shared photos or anything personal
The problem with bans for under 16s is that this stuff still exists for everyone & delaying exposure to it until 16 doesn't solve the problem
The problem is govts won't make platforms stop feeding & promoting toxic content
Many platforms have removed their harassment protections
The article is essential reading
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> I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day
The examples included here are horrible. Not just the sex-shaming, but that too.
I'm far from convinced that a social media ban is the answer, but the comment is still well worth reading - especially by men.
@neil i'll be honest, this article is written as if it were in support of the under-16 UK ban.
All the way at the end of the article:
A social media ban for under-16s might prevent young boys seeing endless content that treats women with contempt and hate.
With a link in there discussing the ban.
The writing was also... well, not teenage like? So prim and proper. Not at all how I used to write, nor anyone I knew...
"The writer is an anonymous teenage web user" is a mighty fine cover for someone wanting to push the under-16 ban...
"Do it for the kids! Ah LGBTQ+ content? No that's not allowed for under 16s"
Target the adults perpetrating the hate, before targeting the kids...
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This doesn't address any of the issues from the article in The Guardian. All those problems existed online on usenet and irc. Long before any company even considered making money from social interactions on the Internet.
Facebook, Twitter, et al are bad companies, but banning them is not going to fix any of the underlying issues.
