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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.

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[-] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 months ago

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!

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[-] lastlybutfirstly@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

I don't understand. Is she posting with her real name and photo? If so, her parents should be in jail. That's mindless. There are billions of people online and millions of them are going to be unhinged assholes and lunatics. WTF!

[-] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 month ago

What crime have the parents committed?

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[-] Havatra@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 months ago

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...

[-] mjr@infosec.pub 0 points 1 month ago

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.

Is there a good guide to what social apps actually let parents oversee their kids and how? I have some friends with children reaching the age where they'll be allowed onto these sites but are still legally children in their country.

I feel like there are incentives for the social sites to be seen as the private and anti-parent ones, rather than grasses/snitches.

[-] Havatra@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 month ago

There are plenty of apps that both provide restrictions upon the device as well as insight into how the device is used. But ultimately, IMHO, nothing beats open and transparent communication with your kid. Make sure they feel safe with you, and that they can share anything with you and you'd still be on their side. This way, they won't have any reason to hide things from you, in fear of undesirable consequences. With this, the parent also has to actively engage in these conversations, not expect the kid to bring up everything of possible concern.

There are also parental control built-in with several apps. And on iPhones and Androids there's already one available where you can do things like limit screen time, prevent app installs, and prevent opening selected apps.

When applying any restriction upon a kid, make sure to talk with them about it so they understand why you are doing what you're doing. It is not because you think they can't handle the freedom, but because with the freedom comes a massive responsibility to prevent harm upon both yourself and others. This is often more effective than any tech monitoring and restriction, IMHO.

If you're asking about how to prevent them from accessing certain sites, there are some options, but they are easily circumventable.

Ultimately though, the internet is an unsafe place, where even places considered safe and mundane can turn out harmful. Open communication is key.

[-] mjr@infosec.pub 0 points 1 month ago

Thanks, but that looks like a long way of saying that you don't know any socials that allow effective parental oversight. They know and use many of the things you mention, and have a good open communication with their children, as far as I can l tell, but I suspect you never quite know how a child will react if things go bad.

[-] Havatra@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 month ago

Yeah, there's no way to be completely sure or safe, for better or worse.

But even if it's not your own child, it takes a village. So if you are able to, as a safe and healthy individual yourself, you should hang out with the kid and talk about this stuff, and also converse with the parent about the child. I think with all this, there's not a particularly big need of technological intervention. Although some simple restrictions don't hurt.

Edit: Actually, I just recalled there being family-friendly DNS! This could be a good and simple measure for adventurous browsing. It doesn't do anything for the content already on social media however.

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[-] realitista@lemmus.org 0 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] Foreigner@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

I don't think telling women and girls to stay off social media is going to fix the issue. She also talks about this kind of language and views being parroted in real life. You can tell your kids to stay off social media but that doesn't mean they're going to be immune from this if other people don't do the same. The bigger problem is boys are being radicalised online, and no one is coming down on social media platforms that profit off of this happening.

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[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works -1 points 2 months ago

Telling somebody to simply not participate in society is not the solution. Creating a better society is.

But it's easier to just tell women to go away or to stop wearing sexy clothing.

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[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

the internet is not a daycare for children.

if you don't have the skin to be online, don't be online.

it's like walking into a biker bar and complaining about the loud music, smoke and lack of healthy food.

[-] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

if you don’t have the skin to be online, don’t be online.

yeah no how about we don't build rapey applications then entice kids to use them?

STOP MAKING EXCUSES, THEY BUILT A BIKER BAR NEXT TO A ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND ADVERTISE $2 JELLO SHOTS FOR 8TH GRADERS

fucking gross

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[-] GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

The complaint here is that the culture we live in is so deeply misogynist that it causes even young women deep emotional pain.

Maybe pick up on that message and show you want to make the world a better place for the women who are part of your life.

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[-] Beep@lemmus.org -1 points 1 month ago

This community should be renamed to anything goes community.

Moderation team never actually moderate.

This is an opinion peace. Why is it posted here?

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[-] Nollij@sopuli.xyz -1 points 1 month ago

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".

[-] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 month ago

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

[-] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 month ago

4th paragraph:

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

[-] blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 month ago

She wanted to communicate her gender and her student status concisely, avoiding the word "female." What word or phrase would be better, taking all those considerations into account?

Boys avoid saying "schoolboy" because there is a weakness/insignificance connotation baked into the term, which would run counter to the machismo/boldness boys are encouraged to strive for.

[-] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 month ago

Someone else suggested that it's a common regional term, and (apparently) not my region. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt that it's common and nonsexual in her area. However, around here I would've avoided terms and phrases associated with porn/fetish.

As for how it could've been written, she had already very clearly established her gender, so she could've just said student. But that can also be reasonably inferred from her age, and isn't really relevant to the rest of the point she was making. The entire clause could've been dropped. Start the sentence with "Like most teenagers".

I presume her goal was to highlight her age and lack of obligations. That would make sense given the following details of her and her peers spending so much time on these apps. The more natural flow (again, my local dialect) would be "15-year-old high-school student", or possibly "15-year-old girl in high school". But these are still unnecessary.

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[-] tgcoldrockn@lemmy.world -1 points 2 months ago

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.

[-] xxam925@lemmy.zip -2 points 1 month ago

I would argue that it isn’t necessarily social media, it’s the internalization of the male defined culture.

This topic is male centric.

The truth is that those boys(and most men) are insecure. I’m a 46 year old man I’ll tell you without a doubt that this stems completely from insecurity.

But so what? Women control the only thing that men want. I promise that women actually have all the power so long as violence and rape isn’t normalized. If women stopped engaging those boys would be on their knees.

All that matters to me, all that matters to the vast majority of men, is sex. Everything we do is a complication of getting sex and controlling women. I have a good job and a nice car and I cook and I work out and blah blah blah to display value to get women.

That’s all we are for, is to add some randomization to the gene pool.

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this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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