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I’ve been facing a lot more personal harassment over disagreements on the internet that should never lead to that level of harassment. Like taking photos of me from my profile, photoshopping them, sharing them labeled as a pedophile because of my appearance, and Last weekend I had an angry racist threaten to dox me to my employer that I— called out racism?— trying to get me fired.
I feel like the paid trolls have gotten really aggressive since the election.
Why are you posting photos of yourself or about your workplace online? First mistake
They take my profile picture. I don’t post about my job anywhere and it’s not on any of my profiles because I don’t associate with that place when I’m not there. I honestly don’t know how they found out where I work.
Don’t post pictures of yourself face online and your life will be happier
Nope. Its the same as it ever way.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/greater-internet-fuckwad-theory
Some people deliberately come to social media for fighting. I probably used to. Maybe on occasion when I’m feeling cranky I will be less diplomatic than I really want to be.
But I find two things actually help:
- I’m not friends/following anyone I know in real life. That helps with anonymity in case I do run afoul of someone who bears a grudge, but also when someone posts aggravating bullshit, it’s not someone I care about. Which leads to…
- I’m merciless about blocking anyone and anything that I can’t engage with fruitfully. Attention is a limited resource and I don’t want to spend it all on negativity. I’m happy to hold genial conversations with folks I disagree with, but if interacting with them becomes tedious, stressful, or annoying I just bin them. Hell, if someone is a big enough prick to someone else I block them. If someone is in every thread harping on some agenda, gone.
Bluesky has a feature to mute keywords for a set period. If I need a break from news about Gaza, Trump, some trending drama, sports (like the World Cup), or just want to avoid spoilers, I mute the topic for a while.
Together, these tools make social media much less negative for me. It usually keeps me from doom scrolling or taking the rage bait.
And when I’m emotionally charged or unclear, I sometimes draft my comments elsewhere before posting. I let it sit for a bit, and if I can’t say what I mean with the tone and clarity I want, I just don’t post. Maybe 30% of my comments get binned—some after spending an hour or more working on them.
In short, I heavily curate my social interactions—both incoming and outgoing—to reduce stress and negativity. As a result, social media today is far more pleasant than it was ten years ago.
BlueSky is genuinely one of the least toxic socials I’ve had in a while. I can agree to disagree there on normal issues like whether UBI should be given in a lump sum, weekly, monthly- it’s not fucking assholes “debating” if aliens built the pyramids and whether we should drink our own pee or if good faith arguments are important or if it’s “natural” to be attracted to 14yr old girls as an adult man (all topics I’ve seen on Lemmy).
That’s one of those things where I’m happiest just not seeing or being part of that conversation. Those are unserious people and it’s pointless to pretend you can have a serious conversation about those things. And even if you could, what is the value to me to wade into the nuance of when it’s okay to find someone attractive when frankly it wouldn’t matter—if they didn’t act like aggressive horny assholes to anyone. I have 13 and 15 year old daughters. I don’t really care who finds them attractive, but I do care who disrespects them, and that’s not going to change when they turn 18, so again that conversation doesn’t need my presence at all.
I’ll agree that Bluesky is minimally toxic, but I also haven’t gotten a whiff of those kinds of conversations here on Lemmy, either. The most contentious ones were in the run-up to the elections and that’s just a tense time for everyone. And it’s hard to let opinions we vehemently disagree with run rampant when the consequences for getting shit wrong are… well… gestures at everything.
or if it’s “natural” to be attracted to 14yr old girls as an adult man (all topics I’ve seen on Lemmy)
Wait, what?
Yeah, there are a lot of men on here who really go to bat for pedophilia. Don’t even BREATHE a word about AI porn of children being immoral because it is modeled after irl children and can be made to blackmail kids etc. Don’t ever argue with any Muslim misogynists on here that child marriage is bad or that feminism in Islam is good. Never be upset that a man was saying it is “probably” not good for kids if they participate in sex acts (we have specific physiological signs like bedwetting that show CSA is inherently damaging to humans) but that it should be totally normal to have your kids WATCH you fuck because they probably did that in medieval times.
And people wonder why my bio recommends BlueSky
Seems to be a positive trend happening. Instead of just nothing but toxic trolls. People are starting to push back on the mindless bullshit that is ruining the world.
Agreed, the toxic assholes have been here since the beginning, everyone else is just finally pushing back.
The special group of people providing negativity are probably bots anyway.
I am hostile to those that relish in cruelty to others. To those that engage in cringe culture, or bully others for just wanting to live their lives without harming anyone.
I’ll accept people getting heated and passionate, but I will never accept cruelty, or worse: self-righteous cruelty. Believing someone needs to be ‘punished’ for some slight and so anything is justified against them.
Basically KiwiFarms and the whole lolcow industrial complex can go fuck themselves.
fuck no we aren’t.
anyone who says otherwise can fight me.
And I’m pissed that you got to this comment first!
Yeah fuck that person
They both seem like assholes to me 🤷♂️
Pot and the kettle much?
You know what they say, if you find that you’re always surrounded by assholes… you’re probably the asshole…Both sides are the same. Fight me on it
I have. I honestly try not to be. There’s just so many uncaring shits online. It makes me sick to think of how fucked up these trolls are to relish causing others distress. Then I become a dick
I’m trying to be better
I feel like I’m fighting a one-person crusade every time I respond politely to some jerk online. Last night I couldn’t sleep because some rando on the internet said mean things. Why are humans like this? Why can’t we just be nice? Sometimes I feel like we deserve to go extinct.
Because everyone wants to be popular. Most people don’t have the tools to be popular through kindness so they simply act like the other orcs instead.
There’s just so many uncaring shits online.
I wonder how much “hate” on the internet is this… but the reality is that is how you “see” them in your head rather than what they’re actually saying/believe. A lot of negative responses to some of the things I say is a strawman of what I actually believe/said.
Someone hacked a roomba last year to yell the N word at people on a mic.
The WORLD has become more hateful, it is not simply perception.
Okay? I never said “ALL HATE on the internet is bullshit”… I said “I wonder how much is just people constructing shit in their own head.”
This is exactly my point. You chose to interpret my words in a way that I clearly would have never intended if you actually spent time to read the words and understand them for what they were rather than some magical interpretation that clearly was never said.
Edit: Thanks for the downvote too! Proves the point further.
Edit2: And on your specific point I would argue otherwise. In the past, humans would just kill each other rather than yelling words through a machine. Literal murder -> Mean words is a de-escalation. We can do better for sure… do not misconstrue that, but to claim that we’re more hateful now, when history shows us murdering each other for less is a bit silly of a stance to take.
I think you’re actually doing here what you are accusing me of re: misinterpretting. My last comment was mild af.
The world has become more hateful. It’s not just online or in people’s heads. We have evidence that massive online warfare happens, literal psychological warfare and soldiers paid to post hate online all day every day. One independent journalist estimated at least a trillion dollars spent for various election/political meddling in 2024 and 2025, with protests in Romania, Georgia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Korea, Germany, Poland, etc etc etc.
So yeah, you got a downvote, grow up about it. You’re wrong and didn’t contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. This isn’t even “hate,” this is simple disagreement that you are too thin-skinned to handle.
Hate is stuff like: ableism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia. Eg a roomba yelling the N word at people. It is not disagreeing with you and downvoting you, lol. For fucks sake.
Edit for your E2: The massive online armies are using online hate to conduct genocides and kill people more efficiently. With massive networks of countries with camps and slavery including Assad’s knowledge of death camps.
You’re wrong and didn’t contribute anything meaningful to the conversation.
So you think that out of all the hate on the internet… NONE of it is constructed shit in people’s own head?(keep in the mind that the article itself talks about personality disorders and DSM-5, literally talking about things like schizophrenia and ADHD… mental disorders that affect how we think are in that book). That this number is so infallibly 0% that my thought doesn’t contribute ANY meaningful value to discuss at all? You sure that it contributed nothing to the conversation and that’s why you downvoted? Cause it would appear to me that you’ve just chosen to ignore the words, ascribe your own meaning to stuff that wasn’t there and then downvoted because you didn’t like it.
It’s clear that this is happening on the internet in many cases. In saner parts of the internet (sometimes even here on lemmy) you’ll see two people arguing, a misconception clear up, and magically all the “hate” dissolved away and both parties walk away amicably.
Hate is stuff like: ableism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hate
It only means that as an adjective, or under pretense where it’s clear that we’re talking about a class of people, if that’s the case it wasn’t clear to me and I just took it as a general overall “the world seems more hateful”. Which it wasn’t used any other way in the comments up to this point this way nor the article itself. So now you’ve constructed some other thing that nobody has referenced just so you can argue some other point that nobody else was apparently making. Keep in mind that the whole thread started with “Hostile” from the article, and not “hate”. The article doesn’t reference anything about any specific classes of people, and even talks about personality disorders (so medical perspective) rather than " ableism, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia" and other… uh… character flaws(? might not be the correct phrase to use but maybe the point comes across) that shitty people have.
Edit: Oh and I don’t care about downvotes. But the fact that YOU downvoted the comment was part of the point. It literally is adding context to the actual discussion we’re actively having. It’s directly related behavioral response that’s worthy of discussing in this particular discussion. Trust me I get down-voted plenty on Lemmy and couldn’t care less otherwise. Usually for not immediately jumping on a bandwagon.
I went to high school in the south, I’m not white.
The hate is not something you can process, the worst we see online, the Andrew tates, the people calling for all brown people to be deported to El Salvador, that’s Disney compared to them.
Becauae it was all they had, and the hate infused them down to the cells, such that it was all they had keeping them going.
Trump took the lid off, let them feel more comfortable talking in public.
But these are people who casually discuss how the only way to heal the world is to exterminate all the Muslims and jews, how we should nuke China now because we can, and how atheists and anybody more left than Trump needs to be castrated now for the good of America.
To people shocked at the toxicity, I think you grew up in far more sheltered places.
Dude I grew up dirt poor on govt cheese in the 70s and 8os. Homeless at times, hunted and fished more for food than bought it
Sheltered? Nah.
Saddened… Dismayed? Yes
Maybe sheltered isn’t the right word.
You grew up in a nurturing home.
Everyone didn’t have that luxury, and many grew up to be assholes.
I watched my father try to kill my mother and was on the streets at 16. Nice try
I don’t say that in a mean way. I will not pretend to know your story. I can’t. Especially those who are poc( I don’t know yours and am not trying to be personal so I’m not asking )
What I’m saying is I can’t understand a poc’s full experience. I’ll never have to tell my kid to watch out for cops because of his skin color.
I can, however, understand how others sink into the anger despair and rage. I know what it’s like to wake in a jail cell, I know what hardship really is.
I also know that it is never overcome through cruelty. In fact that puts everyone, including the perpetrator, in a worse place.
So again. We don’t have to be this shitty to each other.
Yeah see, I don’t buy that. I can say things in a less than PC way, but it takes tow to argue. If I don’t make an effort to be understood, I can’t be pissed when I’m not
And since I can’t force others do that, I can only do what I can
We are all responsible for what we say , good and bad
But thank you for sharing, sincerely
but it takes tow to argue
Eh… It really doesn’t though does it? One side can be sincerely stating points of fact/logic and others often can and do often ascribe that as “you’re a terrible person for saying that!”.
We are all responsible for what we say , good and bad
Good and bad are subjective though. There is often no black and white. I often cite and source things to show that I’m not stating anything as a matter of opinion… and out of the blue some rando comes out and tries ascribing some sense of moral straw-man claiming that I must believe something or another. Here’s an example from literally last night…
I made no statement that could even be construed as putting words in other people’s mouths… yet someone straw-manned me by definition (and didn’t even know the word for it) by Smee there trying to make some grand point that nobody was even making at that point but they thought I was.
Edit: Actually you don’t even need to look at an entirely different thread… Just look at the other response to me. Someone who wasn’t even in the conversation comes out of the blue and ascribes something I never said nor could ever have been construed as and took it to some straw-man end game nonsense.
Let me show you why it takes two…
Have a good evening
IMO, the reason is because scientists haven’t found a way to punch someone in their face over the internet yet.
I’ve long thought that phones needed a taze button. Every telephone in the world should have the power to deliver a high power electric shock to the user, and the phone network should only allow the callee to taze the caller. So if you call someone, the person you have called can taze you.
I don’t see any problem with the telephone network that can’t be solved by putting a 30,000 volt potential across the caller’s jaw. Make it work on call bots too, if a computer automatically calls you and you don’t want it to, put Shearon Harris on the line. Modern problems require 2nd Amendment solutions, and if you elect me as your president in 2028 it is these policies that I shall energetically enact.
I like to carry an air horn for when scammers and other nuisances call.
How often do you have to go get the mics on your phone replaced?
Not yet. 😂
Dang! Some decent hardware then! How bout your own hearing? Getting tinnitus yet? What level of hearing protection are you using?
I’m an old Army veteran, I’ve had tinnitus for years. I’m using a Pixel.
Sorry, pardon?
Never even fiddled around with someone else’s Pixel, how do you like it?
Clearly it deals with being blasted by an air horn 3-15+ times a day, other than robust mics how is the build quality?
They send SWAT teams to their houses, which is pretty close.
It doesn’t quite have the same satisfying crunch though…
Back in the day I just assumed everyone was lying. Or trying to get people worked up, and we called them trolls.
Learning how to ignore the trolls, and not having trust for strangers on the internet, coupled with the ability to basically not care what random people said is a lost art.
Somehow people forgot to give other the people this memo, including the “you don’t fucking join social networks as your self”. Anonymity makes this all work.
Eternal September newbies just didn’t get it.
One of the differences these days is that marginalized groups are having their existences threatened… and not hollow threats, but meaningful ones that have had, and continue to have, very real consequences in the form of policies, hate crimes, etc.
That is legitimate, very real violence, and it results in very understandable hostility. And then those perpetuating, supporting, and celebrating the violence pretend they are victims when people treat them like the orcs they are.
“Why are you being so divisive?” “You’re not very TOLERANT of different opinions, are you?” “Why are you so angry all the time, snowflakes?”
Violent bullies need to be put in their place, and with more than just “hostility on the internet”.
People who enploy hate speech need to have their access to internet revoked, I feel. Though I wonder if that won’t open up all sorts of nasty backdoors…
Hear, hear! I miss the days when trolling used to mean piss take. If someone is trolling, troll them back!
Somehow people forgot to give other the people this memo, including the “you don’t fucking join social networks as your self”. Anonymity makes this all work.
I do get into political debates, but I don’t overshare my real info and I certainly don’t ban anyone for disagreeing with me. I find it cringe if anyone bans someone for disagreement to maintain “mental health”. Unless someone is stalking or making a calculated harrasment on the person online, sure ban or report the troll, but banning someone because the person does not have a good response shows pettiness and immaturity.
Yeah the block and ban thing these days is really weird.
If someone is harassing you, then I guess it makes sense. But otherwise why do people do that?
.
Theres so much pedophilia, wanton violence, racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, transphobia… fuck all these people. May they never find peace or happiness. We owe no one politeness.
Some of the earliest websites were shock sites full of gore and horrific porn. The rest were just regular porn and chatroom degeneracy incubators. The internet was a hostile entity from the outset.
I go more for ‘tiresomely cynical’, but whatever.
I’ve always been a terse asshole.
Your mother is a hamster. >:(
At least my father doesn’t smell like elderberries
But will you join us on our quest for the Holy Grail?!
No you
gasp
🍿&🫖
