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.”
I can really recommend the mini series Adolesence on Netflix (or wherever) to get a great, dramatized example of how this effect looks like.
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.
There was always a large number of stupid kids who were jerks in school, but it was always hidden behind a mentality of stern rebukes of fights and an occasional suspension. Now, all of those same types of moronic assholes have a digital distillated stream of garbage that fits with their natural tendancies, putting these idiots into hyperdrive.
Honestly, it’s probably better that the problem gets worse so that it unmasks the high amount of bullying and abuse that’s normally accepted in schools.
Worst of all, when bullies harass and attack and beat people over and over in school, on the rare occasion when a student defends themself, the defender often ends up charged because “cool” bullies get a free pass unless bones are broken or the victim dies, while uncool victims are castigated by schools for defending themselves. The unfortunate recent charging of the innocent Karmelo Anthony with murder for refusing to be bullied by some asshole jock is an excellent example of this.
Andrew Tate is not the problem, this problem has existed for a long time with school just letting it fester. Tate at least finally makes the problem noticeable. The problem has always been school administrators who allow this sort of stuff to happen.
Have you ever had a creepy guy who hangs around the school desperately trying to impress little kids? Yeah he’s the online version.
Or he’s your friend’s weird, 28 year old brother, whose room is only lit with black lights, and UV reactive posters, has no job, smokes weed all day, and trips all the time, who tells you Mayans invented cell phones.
Some of that’s okay.
I mean, he’s having an easier time getting laid than most of the people criticizing him on these forums so…
Who do you think adolescent boys are going to listen to more?
I mean, he’s having an easier time getting laid than most of the people criticizing him on these forums so…
That’s a bit of projection. Especially when a lot of people shit talking him on these forums are very likely in polycules…
In 10 years, it seems we not only gave up our own nations’ dreams of equality and union, but lustfully decided to lick the boots of those telling us our dreams aren’t worth having. It doesn’t help that the self-proclaimed “leader of the free world” is a known rapist who cuts deals with the Taliban at the expense of women’s liberties.
Good, grbage humans won’t pass on their genes
When I was a kid in the 80s & 90s that’s when the parents get brought in.
A lot of young boys had an “edgy” phase. Let’s hope this is somewhat true here as well.
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They can all fail and become bitter incels together
Sure, let’s not try to help them and just fuck them instead.
Seriously, it’s this attitude and name-calling that drives these lost boys in the influence of pigs like Tate.
Sure, let’s not try to help them and just fuck them instead.
How society collectively decided to design the Millennial experience lol.
And harm other people in society while they are at it
The beauty of this movement is, that no woman would accept a man like that as a father to her children
It’s always interesting seeing comments like this from people who don’t understand the situation.
Andrew Tate brags about trafficking and rape, and they idolize him. In short: They don’t care about acceptance or consent, their plan is turn women into a subservient class that isn’t allowed to have jobs, bank accounts, car, etc.
I have been blissfully unaware of this… I can’t believe how quickly civilisation is turning into a pile of shit.
As a father to a young boy, outside of blocking all social media (tiktok, instagram, facebook, twitter, snapchat) which I already do, is there another medium or method in which this crap can be spread? Of course, I’ll try to instill the same virtues and moral principles that I carry, but I recognise I probably have a few more years, before peer pressure becomes a thing for him. If this is a disease that spreads amongst young men, I’ll try to rip that off, root and stem.
It’s not all human civilization. I’m in Japan right now and it’s not happening like that here. Don’t misunderstand, things aren’t perfect here, there’s other issues, but the kids are mostly alright.
And even in Canada it’s not everybody with these issues, it’s mostly the anglos. Lots of non english private schools that don’t have these issues for various reasons - banned cellphones, stricter rules, stricter parents, etc.
My friends in China tell me the kids there also don’t have these issues. Again, other issues, but not these.
It’s strange how often this has been done in the past. The only culture that didn’t treat women like lesser beings afaik were the vikings. Who weren’t perticularly known for being kind either. Anyhow. Women there were able to own a plot of land and a home. Rather than be a servant in it to a man.
That shit wasn’t transient either, in Scandinavia women will still stand and fuck your shit up if you mess with them.
They somehow solved civilization, it’s incredible.
The numbers don’t lie - scandinavian countries are happier and healthier.
Not by a little bit, commuting here from California is like traveling between heaven and Somalia.
No, but incel culture is also rapist culture. They aren’t looking for consent.
2A + 4B
They were already doing that.
Parents need to raise their children and stop letting social media do it.
The funny thing is that people like Tate would be the first to be eaten when the world ends lol
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…
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.
Countries, especially influential ones like the UK, that are suffering from this BS should band together and fine the shit out of megacorps like Google for allowing this filth to fester and the harm it’s done so far, and also threaten to revoke their operational rights if they don’t agree to strict moderation going forward.
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.
The kind of people that think Tate is a hero should be snuffed out lol
