Mastodawn

Nikki Pinski Nov 14, 2022

Mastodon is full of hope as the intersection of society & tech is top of mind. So I want to ask you ethical technologists & passionate humanists for advice.

I've been growing in anxiety for 5yrs over more young men getting radicalized into hate&misogyny. I see my young self in them - nerdy, frustrated, angry. I got through it & became a well-rounded feminist, but that seems far from certain on today's internet.

I want to do more to help fight this problem but I don't know where to even start.

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Tina Nov 14, 2022

@nik It's hard. The patriarchal messaging in society is strong so it's obvious that men become that way. Alternatives are rare. So two ideas;
1. Look for organizations around critical masculinity, that try to rework internalized patriarchal messages. There was quite the movement in the 90is, don't know what is left.
2. Work in antifascism. Those who have gone down the rabbit hole can only be convinced by stopping them.

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Nikki Pinski Nov 15, 2022

@wunder2welt good call.

But I worry that the kind of angry young extremely online dude who I could help would already be dismissive of such groups purely for the lolz before they even realized they were in the radicalization pipeline. They wouldn't think they believed in an Ideology - rather just trolling. But they're already part of the way there because they wouldn't be listening.

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Tina Nov 15, 2022

@nik At that stage, you cannot reach them anymore, imho. They will only stop if they realize that their stance is unacceptable by society/their close ones.

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Nikki Pinski

@wunder2welt I think this is the fundamental thing that I'm trying to get at! It's reasonable to abandon those in this stage & focus on their targets. But I think this thread has several men who remember our unreasonable teenage "troll" mindset, know we got through it/out, but see that teens today don't get that chance. I propose that WE are the men that need to do more - it's on us to try to reach these kids, but I don't know where to start. I see a list of potential allies in the replies tho!