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I was a teenage boy online. It took 13 minutes for the manosphere to come · The Morning Edition

• 0:07
  S1: According to new Canadian analysis, screen time could damage children
• 0:11
  S1: more than being born into poverty, with academics at the
• 0:14
  S1: University of Calgary finding that higher doses of screen exposure
• 0:18
  S1: are associated with lower overall academic achievement, poor language development
• 0:23
  S1: and emotional and peer problems. So what is it like
• 0:27
  S1: to be a 17 year old on social media? What
• 0:29
  S1: material are you fed and how quickly? Crime and justice
• 0:33
  S1: reporter Amber Schultz found out after she created new accounts,
• 0:37
  S1: posing first as a teenage boy and then as a
• 0:39
  S1: teenage girl. I'm Samantha Salinger Morris, and you're listening to
• 0:44
  S1: Morning Edition from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Today,
• 0:48
  S1: Amber Schultz on what surprised her and why, after only
• 0:51
  S1: an hour, she needed a break for her sanity. It's Monday,
• 0:55
  S1: October 5th. Welcome, Amber, back to the podcast.
• 1:00
  S2: Thank you for having me.
• 1:01
  S1: Okay. Well, I can't wait to get into this with
• 1:03
  S1: you because you set up an interesting experiment. You wrote
• 1:07
  S1: this series in which you set up fresh social media accounts.
• 1:11
  S1: So for one, you post as a 17 year old girl.
• 1:14
  S1: For the other, you posed as a 17 year old boy.
• 1:16
  S1: So what prompted you to run this experiment in the
• 1:18
  S1: first place? And did you have any sort of preconceived notions,
• 1:21
  S1: I guess, about what you might find when you did?
• 1:23
  S2: Yeah. So this was on the back of some pretty
• 1:25
  S2: horrific news. We had a spate of alleged gang rape attacks.
• 1:29
  S2: We had a girl taken to hospital in a suspected
• 1:32
  S2: act of choking during sex, and we had Chanel Contos,
• 1:36
  S2: who was the founder of Teach Us Consent come out
• 1:38
  S2: and say, we just need to do more. In her
• 1:39
  S2: Press Club address. And what piqued my interest was Tanya
• 1:43
  S2: Plibersek was addressing this, and she quoted some data that
• 1:46
  S2: said it takes an average of under half an hour
• 1:49
  S2: for a boy to be shown manosphere content on social media.
• 1:53
  S2: And I thought, well, that's really interesting. Why don't we
• 1:55
  S2: replicate that experiment and see what it actually looks like
• 1:57
  S2: day to day? Because obviously my social media feed is
• 2:00
  S2: a little bit different to that of a teenage boy.
• 2:02
  S1: Yeah. And did you was there any sort of content
• 2:04
  S1: that you thought you'd get, you know, posing as a
• 2:06
  S1: teenage boy as opposed to posing as a teenage girl?
• 2:09
  S2: I thought as a boy, I would be fed well
• 2:11
  S2: for both a boy and a girl. I'd be fed, um,
• 2:13
  S2: body image stuff. So I thought for a boy, it
• 2:15
  S2: might sort of channel me a little bit into like,
• 2:17
  S2: you know, working out maybe peptides and for a girl
• 2:19
  S2: eating disorder content, because as we know, there's been a
• 2:22
  S2: lot of pro-ana content sort of, um, you know, reaching
• 2:26
  S2: the airwaves. Um, but I also expected absolutely to be
• 2:29
  S2: shown from the boy's side. Monoferric content. Um, what shocked
• 2:32
  S2: me was how quickly I was shown it.
• 2:36
  S1: And that's right. I mean, what stands out the most,
• 2:38
  S1: I think, when reading your features is the speed at
• 2:40
  S1: which the algorithm did feed you content on both sides.
• 2:43
  S1: So I guess how fast did the content come in
• 2:47
  S1: on the separate feeds? How alarming was the content and
• 2:50
  S1: how toxic was the content? I mean, first off, maybe
• 2:53
  S1: you can just tell me about all of this with
• 2:55
  S1: regards to the account for which you posed as a
• 2:57
  S1: 17 year old girl.
• 2:58
  S2: For the girl.
• 2:59
  S1: Yeah.
• 3:00
  S2: So the girl's, uh, content was not particularly toxic, I
• 3:04
  S2: would say. Whilst I would still say it put forward
• 3:07
  S2: gender divisions, it was definitely more of a lens of
• 3:11
  S2: women feminism and telling women what they could do to
• 3:14
  S2: lift themselves out to avoid the patriarchy or fight the patriarchy.
• 3:18
  S2: So it was a lot more empowering. And importantly, it
• 3:20
  S2: didn't tell the other side what to do. With the
• 3:23
  S2: exception of, there were a couple of posts telling boyfriends
• 3:26
  S2: to buy their girlfriends flowers. So very sort of wholesome,
• 3:29
  S2: limited stuff versus the boys was incredibly toxic quite quickly.
• 3:33
  S1: So tell us about that, I guess. How toxic, how quickly,
• 3:35
  S1: what was the sort of stuff that you were shown
• 3:37
  S1: when you were posing as a 17 year old boy?
• 3:39
  S2: So 13 minutes was the mark where I was initially
• 3:42
  S2: shown something that shocked me. And so it was a
• 3:46
  S2: girl criticising a boy.
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  S3: I know he can do his own laundry. I know
• 3:49
  S3: that he can clean the house, but I want to
• 3:52
  S3: do it for him.
• 3:54
  S2: And then at an anti-feminist, essentially criticising all of womankind
• 3:58
  S2: for that post. Um, and that was pretty banal compared
• 4:01
  S2: to some of the other stuff I saw. So within
• 4:04
  S2: that was within 13 minutes and then very quickly, without
• 4:07
  S2: interacting until the 30 minute mark, I was shown things
• 4:10
  S2: telling me that, you know, religious content about how wives
• 4:13
  S2: should be subservient and noble content saying that from a
• 4:17
  S2: woman saying that women should treat their husbands like they
• 4:20
  S2: treat their bosses.
• 4:21
  S4: At your office, looking your best, hair done, dressed up,
• 4:26
  S4: lipstick on, answering with a smile, doing what he asks
• 4:30
  S4: without an argument.
• 4:32
  S2: Which is bizarre because who treats their boss like that? Yeah.
• 4:35
  S2: Um uh, and content telling women essentially that they should
• 4:40
  S2: be in service of men. And that was all incredibly
• 4:42
  S2: fast how quickly I was shown that, um, interestingly, most
• 4:46
  S2: of that content was presented by women. It wasn't presented
• 4:49
  S2: by men. It was women criticizing women for not being
• 4:53
  S2: better women.
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  S1: And did you say, did you say all of womanhood
• 4:56
  S1: was besmirched? Did I hear you say something like that?
• 4:58
  S1: So what were you getting that was besmirching perhaps all
• 5:01
  S1: of womanhood.
• 5:02
  S2: So it's essentially saying feminism was destroying the planet, feminism
• 5:05
  S2: was ruining society. And if feminists or if women ruled
• 5:08
  S2: the world, society would collapse, which was just I mean, yeah,
• 5:13
  S2: it was pretty detached from reality. Some of the examples
• 5:16
  S2: they were giving, like just anti-feminists arguing with feminists and
• 5:20
  S2: just essentially saying, if we didn't have men building, you know,
• 5:24
  S2: these microphones, the world would collapse.
• 5:26
  S5: The very microphone you're using was built by men. The
• 5:29
  S5: building was built by men, and there's no gratitude or appreciation.
• 5:33
  S5: You just tell them they're not doing enough. Future is
• 5:36
  S5: not going to be great for feminists. You guys are
• 5:38
  S5: going to get.
• 5:38
  S2: I think women are also involved in that industry. It
• 5:40
  S2: was just.
• 5:41
  S1: Right.
• 5:41
  S2: Very odd. I mean, this is my own theory, but
• 5:44
  S2: I suspect it was only an hour I spent on
• 5:46
  S2: these apps. You know, after that, I needed a break
• 5:48
  S2: for my sanity. Um, but it was only an hour. Um,
• 5:52
  S2: and I suspect that it was sort of the baby steps.
• 5:56
  S2: The algorithm was checking to see how I was reacting
• 5:58
  S2: to this content before it would start showing me, say,
• 6:01
  S2: the Andrew Tate's.
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  S1: Wow. That's interesting. Maybe you'd be more receptive to it
• 6:04
  S1: from a woman first before sort of getting fed it
• 6:07
  S1: from a man?
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  S2: I think so. It normalized it. It was saying, you know,
• 6:09
  S2: a woman saying women should behave like this. It's a
• 6:11
  S2: bit more palatable than maybe a man saying women should
• 6:13
  S2: behave like this.
• 6:14
  S1: That's really interesting. And you mentioned, you know, just a
• 6:16
  S1: couple of minutes ago that this experiment that you embarked on,
• 6:19
  S1: it followed a couple of really shocking cases that we've
• 6:22
  S1: seen in the media of alleged gang rapes of girls by,
• 6:27
  S1: by young boys and men. And in August, there was
• 6:29
  S1: a 16 year old Sydney girl who died after a
• 6:32
  S1: suspected act of strangulation during sex. So we do need
• 6:35
  S1: to say outright that those cases are before the courts
• 6:38
  S1: or they're still under investigation. No finding of guilt has
• 6:40
  S1: been made. But I guess what can you tell us
• 6:43
  S1: about whether toxic online content being fed to young men
• 6:47
  S1: can be linked to violent, sexualised behaviour in real life?
• 6:50
  S2: Yeah, absolutely. So I did a deep dive into what
• 6:53
  S2: was driving gang rape attacks. So those two instances were
• 6:57
  S2: allegedly committed by boys from private schools, one from a
• 7:02
  S2: public school, and the boys were just so shockingly young
• 7:05
  S2: and so were their victims. So I interviewed quite a
• 7:08
  S2: few different people, academics, experts, and people that ran men's
• 7:12
  S2: behavioral boys behavioral programs. And they all pointed to social
• 7:16
  S2: media not as obviously the only cause. This is an
• 7:18
  S2: issue that has existed pre-social media, but absolutely as a driver,
• 7:22
  S2: because these children, very young children, are being exposed to
• 7:27
  S2: violent pornography that is being portrayed as what is normal.
• 7:31
  S2: And what one expert told me was these boys, they
• 7:35
  S2: sort of their their sexuality is still developing, and it's
• 7:38
  S2: still not linked to compassion and empathy. There's sort of
• 7:41
  S2: two separate things. And what's more important for these boys
• 7:44
  S2: at that age, within their sort of sexual desire, is
• 7:48
  S2: being understood, being seen and being affiliated with their group
• 7:52
  S2: of men. So it's reinforcing this idea of togetherness and
• 7:57
  S2: this idea of what being a man is by perpetrating
• 8:00
  S2: these horrible acts because of what's been normalised online.
• 8:05
  S1: After the break.
• 8:07
  S2: We do know that girls, you know, are being impacted
• 8:09
  S2: by things that they see online, and it's having this
• 8:11
  S2: awful effect of, you know, being sucked into that pipeline.
• 8:22
  S1: And I wanted to ask you a bit about the
• 8:23
  S1: sort of, I guess, the body image content that you
• 8:26
  S1: were being fed because in your pieces, you report that
• 8:28
  S1: almost two thirds of Australians aged 12 to 18 said
• 8:31
  S1: social media makes them feel dissatisfied with their body. More
• 8:34
  S1: than 90% have some level of body image concern. So
• 8:39
  S1: I guess, Tess, tell us a bit more about what
• 8:41
  S1: posing as a 17 year old girl in particular told
• 8:44
  S1: you about that side of the algorithm?
• 8:45
  S2: Well, this is what was shocking because I thought I
• 8:48
  S2: would be exposed to eating disorder content. I thought that's
• 8:51
  S2: all I would receive and I so for both experiments,
• 8:55
  S2: I was a passive user for 30 minutes and then
• 8:57
  S2: an active user for 30 minutes. So for the girl,
• 9:00
  S2: after 30 minutes, I followed some notoriously thin celebrities, a
• 9:03
  S2: couple of thin fluences and some healthy eating pages. The
• 9:07
  S2: only thing I got, and this was on Instagram because
• 9:10
  S2: I replicated the experiment on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube reels.
• 9:13
  S2: And TikTok was the only offender. Um, was photos of
• 9:18
  S2: videos of fruit being cut up, just like a strange
• 9:21
  S2: amount of videos of fruit being cut up. And I
• 9:24
  S2: thought that that was maybe going to lead me down
• 9:26
  S2: the pipeline. But no, it was just gender war content
• 9:29
  S2: that that was or gender division content. Um, and that
• 9:33
  S2: was incredibly surprising because we do know that girls, you know,
• 9:36
  S2: are being impacted by things that they see online and
• 9:39
  S2: it's having this awful effect of, you know, being stuck,
• 9:41
  S2: sucked into that pipeline and eating disorder content. But it
• 9:46
  S2: might just be that it takes a little longer that
• 9:48
  S2: I wasn't on the app for long enough. Okay. It
• 9:50
  S2: might be that they've cracked down on it, I don't know,
• 9:52
  S2: but I didn't receive really anything that taught me, you know,
• 9:55
  S2: about disordered eating.
• 9:56
  S1: Okay, well, that's interesting. You mention whether it was possibly,
• 9:59
  S1: you know, you were seeing something of a crackdown because
• 10:02
  S1: I guess take us through how the government has responded,
• 10:04
  S1: because obviously our government's been quite vocal in this space.
• 10:07
  S1: They've said they're cracking down on the social media giants
• 10:10
  S1: to allow Australians to opt out of their algorithms. Right?
• 10:13
  S2: Mhm. So this is part of its digital duty of
• 10:15
  S2: care bill. And it has been spruiking it for a while.
• 10:18
  S2: But this is the first time the government has actually
• 10:20
  S2: said what it will contain. And it was on the
• 10:23
  S2: back of Chanel Contos Press Club speech.
• 10:26
  S6: The online manosphere isn't only a few outliers or even
• 10:29
  S6: a ragtag political movement. It's a multi-billion dollar grievance industry.
• 10:34
  S6: The Aqua Mundo and Reset Tech report said masculinity has
• 10:37
  S6: become a commercial category that is constructed, curated and financially
• 10:42
  S6: incentivized online.
• 10:44
  S2: So Chanel Contos is the founder of Teachers Consent. So
• 10:46
  S2: while she was in high school, she did this massive
• 10:49
  S2: survey for women or girls students who had experienced sexual
• 10:53
  S2: harassment or assault in school and also focused on the
• 10:57
  S2: school's response, which was often pithy. She's now an advocate
• 11:01
  S2: and a researcher and is just doing incredible work. She
• 11:03
  S2: called for an opt in algorithm, which is you get
• 11:06
  S2: fed your feed and it's only your friends, and then
• 11:08
  S2: you can choose to go to, you know, other feeds
• 11:11
  S2: and be fed things by the algorithm. What the government
• 11:13
  S2: has introduced is an opt out so that you can
• 11:16
  S2: opt out of the feed they've also put in, and
• 11:18
  S2: the details are yet to be released, but they've they're
• 11:20
  S2: going to put in a digital duty so that these
• 11:23
  S2: companies have to protect young people from being shown body
• 11:26
  S2: image content or damaging content, bullying content, violent content, things
• 11:30
  S2: that might lead them to become extremists, which is another concern.
• 11:33
  S2: So it's putting the onus back on the organisations to
• 11:36
  S2: do more. It does come off the back of this
• 11:38
  S2: huge case in the US, where meta was sued by
• 11:43
  S2: quite a few different states, which they settled for an
• 11:46
  S2: obscene amount of money to avoid litigation and and said
• 11:51
  S2: that they would not accept any admissions of guilt in
• 11:53
  S2: that settlement. But on the back of that, meta introduced
• 11:57
  S2: a swath of reforms that were things like, um, you know,
• 12:01
  S2: children under a certain age wouldn't be shown the beauty filter.
• 12:04
  S2: They wouldn't be allowed to access certain content. The notifications
• 12:07
  S2: would be muted during school hours. So there was a
• 12:10
  S2: lot that meta already did that. I think the government
• 12:12
  S2: got some ideas from.
• 12:13
  S1: Right. Okay. But you mentioned there that there's this idea
• 12:16
  S1: that the onus will be upon the companies to prohibit
• 12:19
  S1: children of a certain age from getting sort of dangerous comment. Like,
• 12:22
  S1: is that actually going to work? Because, you know, because
• 12:24
  S1: that's a pretty amorphous category, right? Like dangerous content, although
• 12:28
  S1: you did mention some more specific contents there, you know,
• 12:30
  S1: like the beauty filter and eating disorders sort of stuff.
• 12:34
  S1: So like what, what have experts or what have you
• 12:37
  S1: found about how effective people expect this to be in
• 12:40
  S1: terms of the social media companies cracking down?
• 12:43
  S2: Yeah, there's been a lot of criticism as to whether
• 12:45
  S2: it will actually work. I think particularly the opt in
• 12:48
  S2: versus opt out model. I don't know any child that's
• 12:52
  S2: going to choose to own its Facebook 2010. It'll just
• 12:54
  S2: be scrolling their friends reels. I don't know any child
• 12:57
  S2: or any young person that's going to, you know, necessarily
• 13:00
  S2: choose that. Um, it's a big question of whether it
• 13:03
  S2: will work. It's a big question of who's going to
• 13:05
  S2: engage with it. And we know that children are really
• 13:07
  S2: good at finding loopholes. Young people are really good at
• 13:10
  S2: finding loopholes. So look, it sort of, you know, only
• 13:14
  S2: time will tell. But there's certainly a lot of concerns
• 13:16
  S2: that this is maybe not as effective as anyone is hoping.
• 13:19
  S1: And so ultimately, I guess, what did your experiment reveal
• 13:23
  S1: to you that perhaps you just didn't realize beforehand? And
• 13:26
  S1: you know, what does it say? Like, does it, you know,
• 13:28
  S1: is social media really connecting our youth, which is of
• 13:31
  S1: course what it says it does? And what are your
• 13:33
  S1: thoughts about how or whether the company should actually be
• 13:36
  S1: held to account?
• 13:37
  S2: I think, you know, it's really important to remember that
• 13:39
  S2: these companies make money off engagement and emotion drives engagement.
• 13:42
  S2: And the easiest emotion to stoke is anger or otherness
• 13:46
  S2: or victimization. So it was pretty obvious how quickly I
• 13:50
  S2: was shown content that stoked division between the genders. You know, men,
• 13:55
  S2: bad women, good vice versa was really obvious. It made
• 13:59
  S2: you angry. It made you passionate. It made you click,
• 14:01
  S2: engage and stay on even longer. So I think that's
• 14:04
  S2: exactly what we're seeing. We're seeing these companies, um, spruik
• 14:07
  S2: engagement through, through otherness. And it's such a shame because
• 14:10
  S2: social media, when it was first introduced, I think we
• 14:13
  S2: all thought was a way to connect, you know, to
• 14:15
  S2: show off our lives, to meet new people, to find
• 14:17
  S2: togetherness and friends. And it's done exactly the opposite of that.
• 14:26
  S1: Wow. Well, thank you so much, Amber, for looking into
• 14:28
  S1: this and for your time.
• 14:29
  S2: Thank you.
• 14:37
  S1: Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong. Our executive producer
• 14:41
  S1: is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa
• 14:44
  S1: Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow
• 14:49
  S1: The Morning Edition and leave a review for us on
• 14:52
  S1: Apple or Spotify. Thanks for listening.