this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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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."

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Some of you need more empathy. These are children whose insecurities are being exploited for profit. Be mad at their parents, and be mad at figures like Andrew Tate. But these are children and they deserve more grace than that.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Fine, just fail them. This is a problem for the parents to address. And if the parents refuse, then they can enjoy having a child who lives off of benefits and aspires to be an "influencer". Lol.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

can you blame boys for aspiring to this

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

What about the picture where he's sat in trunks and there's literally no visible bulge?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

A lot of young boys had an "edgy" phase. Let's hope this is somewhat true here as well.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Research from anti-fascism organisation Hope Not Hate, which polled about 2,000 people across the UK aged 16 to 24, discovered that 41% of young men support Tate versus just 12% of young women.

That is quite a worrying statistic: 41% of young men endorsing a human-trafficking misogynist rapist.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

It's even more insane that young women (!!) support a misogynic douchbag. What's wrong with them?

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 days ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 days ago (10 children)

Parents need to raise their children and stop letting social media do it.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago

The funny thing is that people like Tate would be the first to be eaten when the world ends lol

[–] [email protected] 29 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Just proves he attracts the immature mind

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago
[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think about just how many shitty fathers these kids have, most of them in the maga cult that are lapping up the likes of Carlson and Peterson's lessons on red pilled bullshit and condoning the behavior of their kids (albeit from a notably absent distance).

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Those little shits should be slapped by their mom's when they get home from school. Suburban trash.

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (16 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (12 children)

Sometimes I wonder if the Internet should only be allowed for people 21 or 25 years or older.

21 is the new 16... 25 is the new 21.

But... At the same time older adults are extremely dumb too.

But giving a young person access to the Internet is like letting them walk NYC alone at night during the 70s.

Ever since Facebook and 9/11 the Internet has been kind of awful.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Honestly, at this point, I'm on board with just banning social media algorithms entirely. No more personalized feeds. You can have a website that publishes whatever you want, but you can't tailor individual feeds to individual people. People can replace their "feed" with what the original internet was meant to be - visiting a series of websites. Want to read nothing but right wing blogs? Fine. You can spend all day navigating to different URLs for them. But no more spoon feeding individually personalized content to people.

It turns out that method of content delivery is just a very dangerous and damaging technology that really fucks with the workings of the human mind. If you tell AI to build an ideal feed model for a person, it builds a nightmare that traps human beings in skinner boxes.

We can ban these algorithms. We don't have to continue to tolerate their existence. And in the grand scheme of history, it would be no different than a thousand other things that we discovered, at first thought was a panacea, but eventually decided the benefits weren't worth the costs. Asbestos is a fantastic fireproof insulator, but we willingly let those benefits go in lieu of its severe respiratory effects. DDT is an incredible pest killer and insecticide, but it also was rendering entire species of birds extinct. Targeted, individually tailored social media algorithms create entertainment feeds that can entertain us to such degrees that the kings of old would lament their jesters in comparison. But what these algorithms are doing to us, what they are doing to our society? On political polarization? The effects they are having not just on children, but of people of all ages? We as a society need to recognize that the benefits just aren't worth the costs. We are tearing our civilization apart for the sake of cheap entertainment.

We need to ban targeted social media feeds. We have faced technologies like this before. We have made the choice before to give up the benefits of these things for the sake of the greater good. We've done it before, and we can do it again. It is time we ban targeted social media feeds.

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[–] [email protected] 350 points 5 days ago (50 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 236 points 5 days ago (17 children)

It’s a shame teachers are pressured to “curve grade” rather than just flunk these people and hold them back a grade.

[–] [email protected] 125 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Even when I went to elementary school over 15 years ago in Canada, kids weren't allowed to be held back without written permission from their parents. I thought it was really fucking weird because we literally had a kid whose mom did all of his homework (everyone knew; he had horrible writing and she didn't) and yet refused to put him in a remedial class or have him repeat a year.

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 5 days ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

We're in for a very, very stupid future.

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[–] [email protected] 149 points 4 days ago (23 children)

In my opinion the huge difference between this generation and all previous ones is that content is no longer vetted by anyone. It used to be that to put something in front of kids it had to approved by some sane adult. If a TV station marketed to children something that most parents would not approve they would face protests or maybe even legal action. On social media any asshole can post literally anything and millions of kids will consume it without any supervision.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 4 days ago (6 children)

That's the whole point of screaming about "liberal" or "leftist" media for all this time even when most media outlets are owned by for profit orgs. They usually have to comply with laws. On social media you've been able to lie as much as you want without consequence or being called out. Corporations mostly use this to market to children and get them addicted to gambling.

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 4 days ago (19 children)

"In a secondary English class last year, a group of boys opted, despite discouragement, to write a persuasive essay on why Andrew Tate is the GOAT (greatest of all time) which included praise of his view that women are a man's property... all of the parents were contacted and were appalled."

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.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I truly thought that this Tate guy was a complete character like Borat. I'm floored realizing this is a real "person"? How does anyone care about helping this guy. Oh wait.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Andrew Tate should just put on the Taliban turban and be done with this charade. His entire schtick is Sharia for Americans.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago

If that is where America is heading, to some theocracy like Iran and where men see women as chattel, then I would rather raise children elsewhere there is a culture of empathy.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 4 days ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 4 days ago (18 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 days ago (7 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 131 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Have you ever had a creepy guy who hangs around the school desperately trying to impress little kids? Yeah he's the online version.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 122 points 4 days ago (13 children)

I don't think it is social media. It is much more simple: people can't spend time with each other. Employers keep reducing the wages, while maintaining or increasing the amount of work their employees have to do. This means that workers can't invest time into friends or family, which in turn deprives children of healthy role models.

Jackasses like Tate get to influence the children, because there is a void that has been left empty - Tate has enough wealth and time to fill in for society. Work culture is a ravenous beast, forever chasing workers. If you pause, you lose everything. So you might as well sacrifice the time you could spend with family, since you would lose them anyway if you shirk being a breadwinner.

Optimization for the sake of line going up, inevitably destroys everything that surrounds the pillar that society is forced to worship.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (4 children)

So? You get a F, you get a F, you get a F...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

"That fucking stupid bitch woman teacher gave me an F because (insert misogynistic mental gymnastics to make it her fault for being female here)"

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

I can really recommend the mini series Adolesence on Netflix (or wherever) to get a great, dramatized example of how this effect looks like.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

Dude, I never cared who my teachers were, so long as they weren’t jerks. Even then, I got over it.

[–] [email protected] 112 points 5 days ago (15 children)

Let's not pretend like these children aren't having this behavior reinforced by their parents.

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 4 days ago

When I was a kid in the 80s & 90s that's when the parents get brought in.

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