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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 (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Objectification, hate, rape threats: the politicians debating online abuse mean well, but to truly understand, they need to see what I see

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[–] 57 points 6 months ago (13 children)

That sounds awful why would you keep using a platform like that?

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  • [–] 60 points 6 months ago (12 children)

    Presumably because all of her friends do, and if she quits using it, then she'll be left out of her friends' group chats on IG and be out of the loop on jokes and memes between her friends. Might seem unimportant to an adult, but devastating for a teenager.

    Your comment is similar to saying "cyberbullying isn't real, just turn off the PC". Because getting pushed out of social spaces on the internet leaves kids feeling isolated, and deprives them of access to shared spaces that their friends use to connect with each other.

    One might say "They can just connect in person!" Presumably they do, but the internet is an inescapable part of modern life and that is unlikely to change. We should push for a better internet, rather than telling people to simply stop using it if they're suffering.

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  • [–] 23 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I used to be bullied hard in elementary for being neurodivergent and "living under a rock", and I did not know what was cool or uncool because I didn't have WiFi at home. To illustrate how ridiculous it was, I got bullied for playing Minecraft to the point that if I left my redstone blueprints on my table they would crumple it, and whenever I ate vegetables they would say, "ew vegetables!!!".

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    But what’s the cost of them being forced to use these online spaces to connect? Is it greater or less than the cost of not using them at all? Seems to me the balance is going farther and farther to the side of using them being worse than not every day. Body shaming, predators, addiction. We didn’t let kids smoke because it increased their social circle did we?

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  • [–] 13 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    I don't think kids should be "forced" to use social media to connect. I was trying to say that the current reality is that kids rely heavily on the internet for social connection, whether we like it or not, and telling kids to "just stop using it" is not going to help those that are struggling.

    I think there is a need for better government regulation to make social media a healthier place for both kids and adults, but I'm not yet sure what the best implementation of that should look like. Leaving age verification to private companies has already resulted in damaging data breaches and will continue to do so.

    Many people advocate for a social media ban for kids under 16, but the predictably imperfect implementation of that means that some kids can easily bypass facial verification and continue using social media, while others cannot and get excluded. I'm reminded of a quote from this article:

    One parent told the Guardian their 15-year-old daughter was “very distressed” because “all her 14 to 15-year-old friends have been age verified as 18 by Snapchat”. Since she had been identified as under 16, they feared “her friends will keep using Snapchat to talk and organise social events and she will be left out”.

    We need a way to regulate social media that is both privacy-preserving and also avoids excluding or isolating kids. Maybe some kind of ban for under 16s is the right path, but at a minimum, it needs secure identity verification provided as a service by the government, where your identifying information is never visible to the private companies running the platforms. Because they will fuck it up or abuse it.

    Maybe instead of a full ban, we should instead ban advertising targeting youth, and ban algorithmic feeds & suggested content for kids. Make it so teens can only see posts from people they follow, in chronological order, so they eventually run out of new things to see and close the app for the day.

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  • [–] 9 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    we should instead ban advertising

    This is the solution. If companies cannot profit off of their platforms, they will not have them any longer. Literally just ban all advertising. Amend all free-speech laws in all countries to define speech as rights of individual citizens, with corporations explicitly excluded.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    Where advertising does exist, for example a phone book, it should be factual and pertinent to the product, not a big titty model or sad puppy dog trying to tap into people's caveman brain. I imagine more of a product registry, maybe even with a model of every registered device made available at a library of things so you can try before you buy. What do we as consumers benefit from having our product research obscured by catchy tunes and manipulation tactics?

    On a similar note, I think we should end all loyalty programs. In addition to privacy concerns, they obscure the actual cost of a good by making it dependent on previous purchases and sometimes by giving prices in points rather than currency. How can I know whether my Kroger or Walgreen's points will result in better long term deals. It's intentionally complicated so I as the consumer can't make an informed decision.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    The day they offer an ad free experience with chronological feeds, all us Millenials will be saying we were born in 2010. :-D That's all I want from my social media. I agree on the advertising point; getting at kids to get the parents to spend money is evil. If we don't already have them, every school should now have a class on recognizing AI, social media vs. reality, and advertising tactics. Kids should know the playbook so they don't get sucked in like a boomer watching QVC.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago*

    How about using just the chat feature or maybe watching her friends stories and posts, instead of doom scrolling reels from strangers? It's not hard myself. But perhaps it's harder if you spend your entire day on your phone hopping between various doom scroll brainrot apps.

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  • [–] -2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    This article is to push legislation to kick her off. She is saying "it would be a good thing for under 16s to be banned from social media". So I think saying why do you feel this way but continue to engage is a fair point.

    This is not the average experience so instead of everyone being punished it should be addressed on an individual level. Plenty of people have a healthy relationship with it.

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  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago

    This absolutely is the average experience for young women on social media, and moreover it's the intended experience. Making girls feel like shit about themselves has gotten powerful men money, sex, and more power for a very very long time.

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