Summary
Social media influencers are fuelling a rise in misogyny and sexism in the UK’s classrooms, according to teachers.
More than 5,800 teachers were polled… and nearly three in five (59%) said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
One teacher said she’d had 10-year-old boys “refuse to speak to [her]…because [she is] a woman”. Another said “the Andrew Tate phenomena had a huge impact on how [pupils] interacted with females and males they did not see as ‘masculine’”.
“There is an urgent need for concerted action… to safeguard all children and young people from the dangerous influence of far-right populists and extremists.”
Every teacher I hear from (US) these days basically says the newest generation coming up is completely screwed. Unreal levels of behavioral issues that are not being addressed at home. Complete lack of engagement with the lesson plan, unfinished assignments all over. They need to curve grades left and right just to get the majority of the class to pass. The parents are more emboldened than ever to make the teachers’ lives hell over things they know nothing about and refuse to take responsibility for.
It’s easy to brush it off as the standard generational nose-thumbing…but this seems different. Something is really breaking down and I think social media is at the center of it.
It’s a shame teachers are pressured to “curve grade” rather than just flunk these people and hold them back a grade.
Schools now lose funding when kids don’t pass, so admins press teachers to move them along.
All Kids Left Behind
Republicans really do destroy everything
This is true for nearly every state, from deep red to deep blue. It is not a party issue but a stupid policy that intended for teachers and faculty to work harder to teach students.
The ironic tragedy here is that the new MAGA GOP is going to destroy and dismantle public education, citing the “failure” of public education to meet the needs of our children, even though it was a Republican policy that crippled the system in the first place.
It’s from a federal law passed under the Bush administration, tying funding to standardized testing scores.
But it was bipartisan, so you’re not wrong.
Murica’
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law
Or, if you prefer a clip from The Wire, juking the stats.
Many if not all school districts in the States have their funding tied to their performance, so there is a negative incentive to make grades look good. My elementary school tried to place me in their Special Ed program because my grades would have brought the average up there.
Plus, holding back 60, 70, 80% of an entire class just isn’t logistically feasible in most cases.
Its so absurd.
I went to a rural title one highschool. I took general level classes and had honors/high honors at least half of my semesters.
Half way through my senior year, I moved. It sucked balls. My new school, was small, literally the smallest school in my state. Graduation class size was 54 students. It was outside the Capital city, and affluent. Everyone was a “prep” had money, some drove very fancy cars to school ect.
The new school didnt offer Gen level classes, only college and AP. I was upset at that because those classes were known to me to be super difficult at my old rural school. At that time I just wanted to smoke pot with my friends tbh. But … I took the classes.
Y’all. This little rich prep school’s College course classes were easier than my Title one school Gen Ed. I couldn’t believe it. This was 2006, and I know now, they did that to keep the funding going. All the little rich kids had parents who could afford to send them all to college, and they needed to look good for thier hard-to-get-into universities.
It still frustrates me the world is like this.
I believe it. I think the much older push against standardized tests was so that “fancy” schools could pump up their grades. I never understood the newer push against standardized tests, you want them exactly so schools can’t pump up their grades. Standardized tests create an actual level playing field.
The recent push came from Covid when many people could not take the tests, and then it stuck around after since administrators wanted to focus on your “well-roundedness” and not high test scores.
The newer push was years before covid.
Something is really breaking down and I think social media is at the center of it.
I feel like you could apply this to almost every societal crisis we’re facing. It’s like social media took every little crack in the foundation and turned it into a chasm.
Parents in Facebook echo chambers trying to discover who to blame for their child’s shitty behaviour then getting into arguments when they are told to perhaps get off their phone and speak to their child.
Children in Facebook echo chambers where they make their neurodivergence their entire personality while simultaneously excusing any and all behaviour due to it.
If both groups spoke to each other a lot could be changed.
It is different, because never in human history has it been easier to influence people. We are literally addicted, as in the brain is literally addicted, to our little disinformation device, the output of which is largely controlled by malicious powerful entities. Now add impressionable young brains to the mix.
It is a pretty terrible scenario with no obvious solution.
I retired from the job 5 years ago. Your description rings true from my experience then (and was a big part of me retiring), and the colleagues I’ve stayed in touch with say it’s very noticeably worse now. I’m glad I got out when I did.
From your experience, why do you think that is? Mostly social media? If so, what about it? Bad parenting? The whole Covid remote stuff? Is it economically driven? Are the schools doing anything differently that could cause it?
I would love to pin it on one thing, like social media. While I felt, feel, like that was a big variable in the downfall, I can’t underestimate the loss of the “American Dream”. I felt like phones should be banned. But some teachers felt like phones could be integrated into the curriculum. I could see both points, but honestly I just felt like society had passed me by. One of my master teachers, when I had been student teaching 25 years previously, said it was time to go when the students no longer entertained you. I felt like that was about right. I don’t think knowledge at your fingertips is a reason not to actually learn stuff.
Thanks for sharing that. Like any job, when it’s no longer fun, it’s time for a change.
Covid really fucked them in not getting normal socialization at school and put a lot of kids behind by a couple of years accedemically. Right now 4/5th grade and up are really screwed. Plus parents just aren’t engaged.
Throw into that mix all the parents who think home schooling is best. Sure, for a select few it’s going to be better, but the majority are going to struggle in later life.
What usually happens is a parent gets reported to social services for child abuse. Then they go to facebook ranting about how bad the school is and that they’re being targeted. Then they pull their kids out of school to “homeschool” so they can continue to abuse their kids.
Covid really fucked them in not getting normal socialization at school
Don’t worry, they will be bullied throughout their life. Missing a couple years of bullying won’t hurt.
I am, not great at parenting, I’ve made hella mistakes. I’ve only one son and do my best.
The number of teachers/therapists (my son works a few programs for his needs) that have been floored by my willingness to parent and hold my son accountable for his actions, is far too high.
While I’ll take the compliment being “a breath of fresh air” (an actual compliment from a therapist) it bothers me more parents cant take thier own faults to accountability nor hold their children to any standard of conduct really saddens me. I shouldn’t be a wildflower in a field of dirt, it should be a field of flowers damn. A silly metaphor but you get my point hopefully.
I am, not great at parenting, I’ve made hella mistakes. I’ve only one son and do my best.
It sounds like you are
It’s mass narcissism and it’s going to destroy our society.
If I don’t see signs of change soon, I’m getting tf out of here.
This is it. We’re a Narcissistic culture, and it’s getting worse.
Not just the US. One of our school districts can’t fail anyone and your final grade is determined by the work you hand in.
lol, and here’s me thinking I’ll get to finally loosen these bootstraps one day. Wouldn’t be Millennial difficulty if something nice happened for once, so why should I expect reprieve in retirement age? Probably just be anxious af anyway because not being abused by another generation seems too good to be true.
Nooo, kids were like that form the ancient times /s.
I’ll broaden it to not just social media, but the totality of endless scrolling social media, plus endless access to narcissist “influencers”, plus addicting video games (inspired by gambling patterns), plus must watch addicting TV shows and movies on demand. A lot of this is endless dopamine machine. Add in both parents working and only children with no siblings is less socialization.
Social media is definitely a big thing, even if it’s not the only thing.
I believe it has two parts. The technology can personalize content and optimize for engagement, so it’s more addicting than traditional media could ever be.
And the jackasses making content have no accountability or editorial standards whatsoever. They churn out whatever clicks and they’re willing to lie, incite, and gaslight their way through it.
Combine the low content standards with the high addiction factor and you have a ticking time bomb. Or maybe it already went off and we’re just looking around at the crater left behind.
So this teacher had nothing bad to say about the teaching or the education system? It’s just bad kids and their bad parents, right? How convenient for teachers.
In reality these schools are indoctrination camps on the school-to-prison pipeline. We live in a fascist society that’s literally destroying the planet. Schools are a fundamental part of this process.
TBH kids shouldn’t listen to their teachers and schools. That’s what got us here.
Probably going to get slated for this but surely at some point we need to accept our being all nice and friendly all the time just doesn’t work.
Like if kids are this bad send them off to military school for a month till they shape up. Happens again 6 months, then 12. Government mandated, parents don’t like it, they can look after their kids better.
People are absolute shits and don’t give a fuck about others or their future. No amount of “please pay attention or you won’t understand algebra and won’t get a good job” will do anything, you will just get “Why do i need to learn algebra! I’ll never use that. John just told me to shut up, what am I meant to do? Just let him disrespect me like that. You should be talking to John!”
Fuck them. Make them do press ups in the rain see if they learn to shut up then.
I actually agree with you. There used to be real consequences for bad behavior and being lazy, and now you get told that it’s not really your fault. Zero concept of personal responsibility. Now society is an epidemic of mass narcissism and selfishness. It clearly isn’t sustainable. There are going to be severe consequences for our quality of life in the future, and that’s assuming society even survives this epidemic at all.
How many Gomer Pyles will that produce?
Maybe less than all the murderers we have now. Being straightened out by the military is a well known phenomenon. We can’t keep doing the same things when trends are showing they aren’t working, then expect them to work better. Something needs to be changed.
Those damn machines, impacting the youth!
Those damn newspapers, impacting the youth!
Those damn radios, impacting the youth!
Those damn TVs, impacting the youth!
Those damn internet connected computers, impacting the youth!
Those damn smartphones, impacting the youth!
Those damn AI models, impacting the youth!
Our youth now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders, and they love to chatter instead of exercise. Children are now tyrants not servants of their household. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.
Thousands of years of this stuff.
I’m probably just another old idiot who can’t see things for what they really are, but social media does scare the hell out of me. It’s hard to imagine it being a good thing when personalities are shaped by algorithms that exist entirely to drive engagement so a company makes a buck.
It isn’t just rich chocolaty ovaltine. The kid isn’t being brainwashed to drink a sugary drink from time to time. The kid is a constant revenue stream.
I feel like literally every generation for the last 1000+ years probably had a similar sentiment
You’d be off by 1500 years, that was Socrates.
Considering 2500 years ago is more than 1000 years ago, I’ll assume you mean 500 years in the future.
(Also if that’s an actual Socrates quote that’s hilarious)
That was Socrates circa 500-ish BC, 2500 years ago or so.
They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents,
Uh…
We really have reached a whole new level of impression.
its all about who controls that stuff
Have you ever had a creepy guy who hangs around the school desperately trying to impress little kids? Yeah he’s the online version.
Let’s not pretend like these children aren’t having this behavior reinforced by their parents.
The internet has made it quite easy for kids to develop an “inner life” that their parents have little to no awareness of, regardless of how attentive they are, though it’s obviously worse if they are not.
Guess what, it’s your job as a parent to keep your kids off the Internet then.
I developed an inner life, it was the only peace I could find from the daily assault that was my outer life. Sure in the past it was more visible habits like reading a book, but letting kids have some autonomy over their lives is important I feel
That’s it. From what I hear (in Germany) is that the number of students with problematic behavior has increased, yes. That is something teachers can handle, if the parents cooperate or at the very least not interfere.
Unfortunately the number of problematic parents has sharply risen as well. More seem to be taking a page out of the Trump playbook of never admitting anything and going on the offensive instead. They can become quite aggressive and belligerent when their kid faces consequences for their actions, especially if misogyny was involved.
It’s impossible to help these students, if they act out behavior they see at home or, often enough, from their divorced fathers, and are encouraged for it.
Behavioral issues start at home.
Because the kids are digesting the content at home?
Not necessarily, but in my experience with my friends’ kids, the ones that are the most maladjusted are the ones with their faces buried in their phones all the time, and these are the same kids that were raised on iPads and YouTube all day. It’s one thing to have an hour or two of screen time in a day, but the parents that don’t limit it have the kids with the most behavioral problems.
Where did the parents get it? Why did they get it? Why don’t they know better?
I’m not being cheeky. I want to know real answers to that shit.
Since i have a kid with autism i notice how little other people with regular kids invest in them. When the kid starts to walk and talk at the age of two, they basically expect of them to act as adults, and I’m not exaggerating. After that kids get a minimal amount of time that parents address to them. Kids are given a phone too keep them not asking for parents attention, which is formative for their social and emotional skills. You don’t learn that from other kids or Jake Paul. So it’s a combination of shitty parenting and extremely toxic place where people spent hours every day. If you are a developing person it will fuck you up.
Let’s not pretend that this is real news instead of phony clickbait from Sky effing News.
He should meet a Luigi.
The problem isn’t that we need to get rid of Tate. They are like flies and there will always be more like him.
What we need to figure out is what made him so persuasive to young boys - that’s the real problem. We need to know why young boys are willing to listen to bullshit like his, and we must figure out what we can do to correct that.
No positive father figure in their lives. No sense of community. Stigma from male role models that want to step up but fear being branded a PDF.
I honestly don’t have a strong sense of how Tate can be so popular. But if I had to guess, I’d say the “no sense of community” is probably the biggest thing.
The internet has become a gathering place where communities and social bonds are formed. I can imagine a heap of people who are struggling socially in the real world seeing, and then seeing Tate and his community offer an ‘answer’ to that - supporting those who feel rejected, and putting the blame squarely on others. That’s what I see as the draw that brings people in. They feel safe and secure in their haven of hatred. Any opposition to them is from people that are weaker and less important. – Which then makes leaving the group almost impossible, because you’d have to degrade your own view of yourself - joining the people who you think are weaker and less important.
So this Tate thing is rot that has taken root because of a gap in more healthy support structures. (I don’t see an easy solution for it though!)
A big part of this is the shallow takes on feminism that are so pervasive.
And to be clear, it’s not feminism itself that is the problem. It’s the complete lack of nuance we have when discussing topics as a society. The idiots outnumber the thoughtful people, and when an idea becomes mainstream, the dumbest possible take is the loudest and the easiest to spread. So actual feminism got out-yelled by idiots taking the idea to the most illogical extreme.
And that leads to light misandry. And even if it is light, it’s so pervasive that young boys now feel like they’re being overlooked and ignored, demonized and generalized with the worst men have to offer.
And again, I have to stress, that this isn’t because of feminism, it’s because of the lack of nuance surrounding all discussion, but in this case, the discussion around men/feminist issues. It’s much easier to spread “all men are garbage” than it is to spread “women have historically faced complex issues that, together, are a societal stumbling block resulting in less favor in everyday life and a harder, more complicated existence.”
And when this is the case, men like these assholes step in to tell boys, “fuck women, you are a king and you deserve everything.” And what little boy isn’t going to be empowered by that? We need to have space for men in modern society that is supportive and open, because right now the only “support for young men” comes from assholes trying to capitalize on the complicated feelings of suddenly feeling like they’re being unfairly overlooked.
Now, that also has to take into account that if the boys are ever overlooked, it’s because there have been centuries of unequal treatment for women, and that has to start to be righted somewhere. And it’s only been in the last, like, 30-50 years. And in all that time, we haven’t taken the high road to equality, we’ve taken the easy road hyperbole and simplistic solutions, which doesn’t solve the existing problem, it just gives us new ones—like this exact problem we’re dealing with now.
What we need to figure out is what made him so persuasive to young boys
Why is this a mystery to people? Everything is falling apart and most adults are in denial about it, kids are going to follow people like this because they sense the nihilism of the moment that their parent’s can’t handle confronting.
We do need to get rid of Andrew Tate though I will settle for him going back to jail, but his popularity isn’t a mystery. There is a very clear pipeline to make money as a conservative influencer, this is then ultimately an issue of money being poured into manipulating children.
You can do both
We only talk about the absolute worst men. We have raised them to think that the right is the party for them because otherwise they are being told over and over that they are dangerous predators and nothing more.
Because all we hear about men from the left is that women would rather be with bears, and that men are useless. And that they are oppressing everyone with their privilege.
You tell some poor white kid he’s privileged, he’s not going to be your friend or sympathetic to your causes.
I don’t think messaging from the left has really done anything to win them over. It’s not necessarily that Andrew Tate is telling them anything amazing. He’s just a voice not blaming them for everything.
Maybe it’s because all we hear from your type is how immigrants are the root of all problems, “all lives matter” and junk like that.
What a great example of what they were talking about!
What’s my type? You couldn’t have made my point for me any harder than you just did. You just irrationally lashed out at an ally.
“There are too many assholes in the world because people let them get away with it.” - Mr Inbetween
Gotta remember… This is sky news. Probably fake. Especially since the “survey” doesn’t even match the headline.
More than 5,800 teachers were polled… and nearly three in five (59%) said they believe social media use has contributed to a deterioration in pupils’ behaviour.
Wow it seems like everyone here is completely credulous and happy to have their bias confirmed.
This is absolutely a kind of rage-bait.
I don’t doubt that there’s a growing segment of misogynistic boys who have been influenced by Tate and our society’s general check-out when it comes to being communal and supporting each other and the absolute bullshit mess that social media and online dating has created for young relationships, the statistics are abysmal and worrying…
But that said, the large majority of all Americans at any age are still pretty much just getting through it like always.
These kinds of stories, while beneficial that they are highlight and showing us problems that need to be addressed, all they’re doing without a prescriptive solution or counter-point is just wedging this division in our community further and further apart. It’s making girls scared of boys. It’s making boys scared that girls will think they’re horrible misogynists, and thus they will be defensive at the ready accusations and the exchanges spiral from there.
It’s revolting that we cling to hateful figures so readily. They give us validation for pent-up frustration and anger at a system that has abandoned us. That’s why it’s addicting to read about horrible things and horrible people. Which makes horrible things and horrible people. Our addiction to hating people is creating people like Tate, because our desire to hate someone makes us click on these stories over and over and feel that righteous outrage that seems to make everything make sense. It’s addicting and we need to recognize it and stop imbibing in it.
I mean, I’ve worked as a teacher for eleven years and I don’t know a single person who doesn’t think that social media contributed to declining behavior standards. When I say, ‘a single person’, I am referring to other teachers or administrators. I am not using hyperbole. Nobody thinks it is good, everyone thinks it’s bad, and every year we tighten the noose.
This is across three school districts and nine grade levels.
Yeah. It’s sort of insanely ironic, to me, that it seems like the prevailing attitude in this comment section is to just eat this, hook, line, and sinker. Everyone’s consuming internet disinformation that reinforces their biases right here. The exact thing they’re complaining about, with the newer generation. Just as low, in terms of literacy, or the ability to distinguish. Everyone’s so insanely eager to cite whatever anecdote their friend’s friend who works at a school gives them, without a second thought, about how the kids today are just worse than the kids of yesteryear, and how social media is surely to blame. Reactive response to just ban your kids from using technology at all, which is a pretty good way to get them alienated from their peers and also not prevent anything at all since their peers will probably also be fully willing to expose them to whatever they get exposed to. It’s awesome to see every generation become boomers over time, really cool.
Teachers have been complaining about the “manosphere” shit for a while
When I was 10, or 13 there were literally no issues like this at all. Well, I didn’t even think about girls that much at that age, let alone in overly sexual way, lol.
What the actual fuck is happening with society recently? Is everybody going insane because of social media?
I was a rotten kid growing up with distant parents and a hostile sister.
If I’d had access to porn and comics without leaving the house, I’d have become one of these people.
This is why the tech bros don’t want their kids growing up looking at screens.
I’m not a bro, but my 9 year old son isn’t allowed to watch YouTube unsupervised, because when I was 9 I found my way to 4chan.
That won’t keep him safe…
Comics?
You never heard of web comics?
Allow me to introduce you to oglaf.com
Oh, well yeah okay I thought you were talking about comic books lol.
No thank you for the link???
Damn kids…
Get off my lawn.
Grumble
Yes lol
Is everybody going insane because of social media
Well I can tell you its broken the minds of most of the old people I know, especially fakebook. Old people are seemingly unable to tell fact from fiction online, I mean all people have trouble with that to an extent but its hitting the older people especially hard. Most of them seem to think everything they are seeing from pure political propaganda to obviously fake advertising is 100% real.
We are headed for a world where half the people believe nothing and the other half believe everything which will be a disaster.
Well from what I see it affects mostly old people and younger ones (at least if you trust media, I don’t have any contact with people younger than 20, except my brother which is 6, so it doesn’t really count). Millennials are probably the least affected ones.
Divide and conquer 1%er propaganda systems.
Murica is doing typical murica things.
Isn’t this story about the UK?
Derp. UK, wtf are u smoking over there? I thought we were supposed to be sane continent.
They are just as dumb as us Americans. They did Brexit before we elected Trump.
When I worked in a middle school a couple years back, I heard the Tate shit there. Had a student who would name their Kahoot something like “[female students name] has a nice ass” and administration would refuse to allow me to impose consequences.
If you are around teen boys, please talk to them about Tate. He’s not someone who should be walking free, and he’s not someone children should be listening to.
I’ve already raised 3 wonderful & respectful children into mostly functional men, but if I had ever gotten a call like that, the child in question wouldn’t have had a phone or seen another webpage until after they moved out as an adult.
Alternate idea: it’s not my job to raise someone else’s kids.
This shitheaded take is how we ended up with the failing society that we have
If youre a teacher you need to quit. Now.
No it isnt our job to raise someone else’s kids but it is our job to educate them. Not just on curriculum. Teaching isnt just shoving curriculum down students’ throats, calling it a day, and getting your summer vacation.
Our job is to help students succeed as people. The curriculum is one small part of that. Being a role model and teaching kids how to be better people is a part of that. If you didnt sign up for that, find another job.
The world is full of shit teachers and I cannot stand teachers who dont take this job seriously enough to understand the responsibility it comes with. Do better or find different work. For your sake and the sake of your students.
Actually when you live in a democracy it is. Or at least, if you don’t you still get the consequences when these kids start voting.
If a psychopath has an influence over children in their formative years, it is your absolute responsibility to educate the kid and the parents.
It’s not your job. It is rewarding in and of itself though.
The great part about Boys and Girls Clubs or being a CASA or face painting at a festival etc is that you don’t have to raise them. The undivided attention of adult who seems to genuinely like and care about them for like 15 minutes is the kind of shit that changes kids lives.
I’m not saying “organize community talks at your local library about positive masculinity” or “become a Big” but - maybe a cousin says something shitty at dinner, and you bring it up gently in a chat? Or be a positive role model in spaces where you encounter young men: in video games, on forums, outside…
The best way to create a society where men are allowed to cry and express their emotions is to teach boys and young men these things are okay.
think again. do you want someone else’s kids to grow up to be misogynists who will vote?
Well the solution to that one 10 year old is pretty clear. Actions have consequences, if he wants to be a little shit he can repeat the grade next year after hard failing this one.
Andrew Tate should just put on the Taliban turban and be done with this charade. His entire schtick is Sharia for Americans.
He already converted to Islam
Tho he seemed to be mixing up Islam with just the Najdi culture.
Stories like this are what I think of every time the topic of regulating social media comes up.
We know it’s programmed to create rage machines. We do, and then people act surprised when social media works as designed.
Fake Sky News is also a rage machine.
Removed by mod
The problem is he’s a symptom of broader socialtal issues. Someone else will just rise to fill his place unless we work to address what caused him prominence.
There already are countless others, Tate is just one of the most prominent. Because of all his crimes.
Banning hard drugs doesn’t solve the underlying problem, but it makes them less widely available, which is a good thing. Ban him.
Does it? Or does it just make hard drugs more dangerous and drive up multiple related crimes (burglary, shop lifting, mugging, cocoing, county lines etc) and stigmatise people with addiction issues stopping them from being able to seek help?
I believe it does. It’s really hard for children to buy hard drugs.
It’s also really hard for children to buy booze. Having it legal and regulated stops kids getting it and stops the illegal activities surrounding it AND brings in tax revenue.
With illegal drings you end up with children and vulnerable people falling victim of county lines and cuckooing.
https://metro.co.uk/2025/04/19/cuckooing-devastating-crime-hiding-plain-sight-22926126/
https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/what-we-do/crime-threats/drug-trafficking/county-lines
Yall didn’t see this coming with the red pill derived slang that kids have been using? They’re obsessed with their value. It’s terrifying and capitalism loves it.
Parents need to raise their children and stop letting social media do it.
What if their parents are shitty and encouraging this type of behavior?
The Andrew tate type people tend to have kids because they want sex and that’s all they think about. They don’t think critically about contraception, or long term decision making. Then they either abandon the child/mother, or raise it to be an asshole.
You’re not wrong. Parents can be contributing just as much to the problem. I guess the only common source would be social media in general.
Except social media raised the current parents of the Day. It’s been 20 years dude. People don’t know any different.
Hm yea I guess so. I’m at the age where I grew up without it for a portion of time and then dealt with it in my teens. I never really used it that much though, and don’t use it all now, except for sites like these.
Ironically jokes about the internet raising children is very old. There was a comic strip in Mad Magazine from the late 90s that had a boy go ask his mom ‘mom, if God made everything, who made God?’ She replies to go ask his dad, and when he does his dad replies, ’ go ask the internet!’
It is still funny, but given the incredible amount of disinformation out there it just is a really bad idea.
For sure. It’s too much to keep up with, and now, it’s getting harder to tell what’s real or not.
can you blame boys for aspiring to this
King of all the chinless chuds.
What about the picture where he’s sat in trunks and there’s literally no visible bulge?
You don’t need to resort to body shaming to shit on him
yes I do. what I don’t need is wokescolds today thank you
This is totally a diffusion of social media issue. Twenty years ago, the media that kids had available for consumption was age rated. We had agreed as a society that certain things should not be visible to children until they grow up. It was possible to do because it was centralized (TV, movies, radio, print) and it was accountable to regulatory bodies and the rest of society. If a TV channel showed something as shitty as Tate style propaganda, there was institutional pushback, there were letters to the editor, there was someone specific to be targeted for accountability.
With social media being dominated by US style “freedom of speech” algorithms and US style acceptance of the impossibility (or even undesirability) of regulation and with completely unaccountable megacorps running them while giving very minimal if non-existent attention to who is watching what, we have a complete lack of age rating. We have given up on the idea of protecting childhood it seems.
Coupled with every fucking other issue being brought up in this thread, from COVID, to economic issues, to cultural misogyny, there is a perfect storm…
Twenty years ago, the media that kids had available for consumption was age rated.
It was, still is, was ten years before, and trust me that didn’t stop me one bit.
What’s different then and now is the degree of choice people employ in their media consumption. It’s not like there was no Nazi propaganda on the net in 1990, it’s that who the fuck seeks that stuff out. The feeds that were choice-free were, yes, sanitised (TV, radio, though if you stayed of long enough TV would show rather interesting things), but also numerous. Like at least seven TV channels over the air, and plenty of radio stations (though most played shoddy music). Imagine having seven tiktok feeds you can’t fast-forward but switch in between. On current algorithmic platforms, you skip something, get shown the next thing, algorithm learns about you, about how to draw its hooks specifically into you. Back in the days, you couldn’t skip, switched away, and if there was only uninteresting stuff on the other channels you switched off. Internet? Age of web rings, search barely even existed. Anyone remember altavista?
I roamed the library, inhaled multiple series of books whole-sale, but in between, there was always this magic moment: Browsing. Looking at things, shaking them a bit, see if they’re actually interesting. Great availability of things, yes, but also limited time, and preferences, so you got picky.
That’s the skill that’s getting lost: People are outsourcing their consumption choices to algorithms. Worse, ones who care about nothing but retention, how can they keep you hooked so you watch more ads.
…which btw ties back into youth protection. Ratings etc. exist but the general consensus in youth psychology is that as soon as youth seeks something out by themselves, they’re ready to consume it. Ratings are there so that kids don’t stumble across things inadvertently, not so that they are completely unable to consume it. A hoop to jump through, maybe some secrecy, all that is a proper framework, “they think it’s not for me, I think otherwise”, puts the mind in the right inquisitive-but-cautious frame. That, however, presumes a choice algorithm that’s running in your head, and not in the cloud.
And meanwhile, “media literacy” is understood as “spotting fake information”. BS. Any information will become true to anyone if you allow it to be fed to you without getting your own agency involved. The question is less “are kids able to sniff out BS” – they by and large are. The question is whether they have the power to say “I choose not to continue down this path”, whether they have trained that muscle. Because without that no amount of skill in spotting bullshit will save you.
With social media being dominated by US style “freedom of speech” algorithms and US style acceptance of the impossibility (or even undesirability) of regulation and with completely unaccountable megacorps running them while giving very minimal if non-existent attention to who is watching what, we have a complete lack of age rating. We have given up on the idea of protecting childhood it seems.
…and you have clearly given up any pretense of not being extremely authoritarian it seems, what the hell does “freedom of speech algorithms” even mean? Rhetorically you are completely mixed up about what is going on and what the solution is, I am amazed you made it here to the fediverse.
We had agreed as a society that certain things should not be visible to children until they grow up.
Do you have evidence the systems we employed to do this actually didn’t make problems worse? As far as I can see, it is also just overly righteous adults desperate to fix the world in ways that don’t make them look inwards and question the policies they support and the beliefs they hold.
I missed a comma before “algorithms” it seems.
The kind of “extreme authoritarianism” you’re pearl clutching about is literally the age ratings system that was in place in the late 90s. Get a grip.
You are the one pearl clutching.
The rise of criminal assholes like Andrew Tate has to do with ADULT MEN VALIDATING these figures all the way up to the most powerful adult men on earth.
Why do you think turning up the centralized censorship dial is NOT going to directly benefit people like Andrew Tate when Andrew Tate is exactly the kind of person the people who have control of that dial actually want?
I am in support of more human moderators moderating social media for kids, but in an empathetic way of giving kids more actual human attention, not as an authoritarian impulse to fix things by always just tightening control over others.
actually the correct response, yeah. the same people who control the social media algorithms, the same people who have been pushing andrew tate, are the same people who control society more broadly. that the response is always instinctively to just hand over more control to them is extremely cool.
