> I am a 15-year-old girl.

[etchedpixels@mastodon.social]

@neil Sadly not just social media. Same is as true in the press (where female chancellors get mocked as Rachel from accounts, or for their outfits) - I'm not sure social media is the source of the problem somehow.

Likewise I think a social media ban is a bad idea (and a disaster for disabled kids) - we need to actually fix social media, which means like a pub some people need to be shown the door and told not to come back

[matus_chochlik@mastodon.online]

@neil maybe instead of banning 15 yo girls (or any minors) from social media, we should ban the poor excuses for humans doing this.

[dan@mastodon.durrans.com]

@etchedpixels @neil I don't feel that social media is the source of the problem, but I do feel that it adds fuel to the fire at a speed at which we have never had to cope before. That's not to say I support a ban, I don’t, but there needs to be some really thoughtful interventions, regulations, and societal change to make a real difference.

But that sounds hard doesn't it. Probably requires money. Easier just to ban it and make money for the data brokers with their ID verification.

[ret@furry.engineer]

@neil the depressing reality is that a group of (mostly) male, rich, powerful people (MPs and the broader British political class) are now discussing further punishing this group of young people by isolating them from any support they'd otherwise be able to find.

Meanwhile the Online Safety Act is slowly making it more and more difficult for proper social media - circles centred around interests, passions and identities - to exist. Driving more users into all the platforms this young person talks about here - Instagram, TikTok etc.

Once again, politicians have taken a problem, been offered nine hundred and ninety nine solutions and picked option 1000 - make everything worse.

[woe2you@beige.party]

@etchedpixels @neil "Rachel from Accounts" is a riff on the Aussies' "Scotty from Marketing".

[colman@mastodon.ie]

@neil we've got to find a way to make society in general consider women as people rather than as objects.

HarriettMB (@HarriettMB@toot.wales)

An important read for everyone; this misogynistic behaviour is ‘normalised’ by actions of authorities, such as the IOC testing womens hormones [not ‘female’ enough], of online persona such as Andrew Tate, or the repellent comments from POTUS […. Whether the women like it or not], and a million tiny actions every single day. #Misogyny I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day | Anonymous | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/23/15-year-old-girl-misogyny-social-media-online-abuse

Tŵt Cymru | Toot Wales (toot.wales)

[ahnlak@kavlak.uk]

@etchedpixels @neil while I agree fully with the sentiment, I've shied away from pub comparisons due to the awkward fact that unaccompanied minors are banned from them.

It's probably closer to banning children from the park because there might be a bad man lurking in the bushes...

[etchedpixels@mastodon.social]

@woe2you @neil But that kind of attack and belittling is focused almost entirely on women in positions of power, as is body shaming and poking fun at their outfits.

[neil@mastodon.neilzone.co.uk]

@etchedpixels @woe2you

Body shaming is very much common place, directed towards many women, not just something directed to women in positions of power!

[etchedpixels@mastodon.social]

@ahnlak @neil Looking at current social media behaviour in English language at least I fear it's more right now like banning unattended children from the park because the park is on Epstein's Island.

The park needs fixing.

Very good point on the pub analogy

[ahnlak@kavlak.uk]

@etchedpixels @neil for sure, it's that really dodgy park with all the broken bottles and needles - I'm not saying the park isn't a problem, just that banning minors rather misses the problem.

[agt@pnw.zone]

@neil

Social media is dangerous so ban children rather than blame the companies (and their founders) for dangerous products. Same tactic as plastic is dangerous so shame individuals into recycling rather than blame the plastic makers. Billionaires are good at making "consumers" responsible for their bad products.

[jima@mspsocial.net]

@neil Yeah, only adult women should be subjected to the vile misogyny. 🧐🥴

(It's a problem, no argument; I fail to see how isolating minors from communities they can find online is necessarily the answer, though.)

[anygould@kind.social]

@neil Name and shame, I say - the problem isn't that they're young (I remember old warehouse guys throwing hissies about losing their girlie pics in the locker room decades ago). It's that they suffer no consequences.

[fartnuggets@jorts.horse]

@neil as long as there are people making misogyny profitable, this is only going to get worse. The platforms are profiting and face no real consequences for all their misdeeds, so we end up with this shitty reality. The social media ban was never about trying to fix any of the causes of the damage. It's all total bullshit and it makes me rage. They're doubling down on exploiting our kids and charging us extra for it.