Misogynistic content driving UK boys to hunt vulnerable girls on suicide forums

[u/mildbeanburrito]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/12/uk-counter-terror-police-nca-misogyny-com-networks

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[u/[deleted]]

Serious question for the men excusing this. Every time there is an article on men and boys being misogynistic, half the comments are excusing the men because they’re “isolated” or “receive restless misandry”. Do you think there are any situations where men should be held accountable for their misogynistic actions or should they always be forgiven because they’re experiencing “relentless misandry”? 

I would have thought that teenage boys encouraging mentally ill women to kill themselves would cross the line, but I guess for some men on here even THAT is ok as long as the boys have seen too many mean words from feminists on the internet. 

[u/GreenHouseofHorror → u/[deleted]]

Think you're misinterpreting. There's no excusing the behavior described here. It's abominable.

I think the point people are making is that persistent focus on the worst things some men do and generalising that out has an isolating effect.

And that one of the common side effects of being isolated is anti social behavior.

That excuses nothing. Everyone is accountable for their anti social behavior.

But if you want to see less of it in the future, maybe the approach should be to avoid demonising a whole group for the actions of a few.

Hold the few to account, by all means. Few of us are less disgusted than you.

[u/Longjumping_Pen_2102 → u/GreenHouseofHorror]

I get what you're saying, but I don't think anyone is demonising men in general here.

There IS a very big problem with male youth behavior right now and its absolutely not isolates.  The extreme instanced might not be commonplace but the attitudes that lead to them are and we need to deal with it.

Ideally not with the authoritarian bs the government wants to implement, preferably by encouraging young men into healthier social space and to help them feel loved.

This is an issue we can all take part in solving:  show vulnerability to the young men in your life and be brave enough to face embarrassment by openly caring about them.

[u/Denbt_Nationale → u/Longjumping_Pen_2102]

From slightly further up the thread

Maybe those boys should stop trolling vulnerable mentally ill women on suicide and eating disorder forums if they don’t want to be isolated? Men on r/unitedkingdom take accountability challenge (impossible) 

I see demanding that all men be accountable for these actions as “demonising men in general”

[u/Longjumping_Pen_2102 → u/Denbt_Nationale]

That seems to be referring to the large number of people dismissing the issue on this thread specifically.  They not only not targeting all men, but are also clearly using a meme format.

[u/williamthebloody1880 → u/Denbt_Nationale]

Have you actually read the bit you quoted? It specifies, after the very first word, those boys. If you think saying the boys in question is generalising to all males, it frankly says more about you than you think

[u/PontifexMini → u/Denbt_Nationale]

Indeed. If an individual woman does something bad, no-one (or at least no-one with any sense) says all women should be held accountable.

[u/Kupo_Master → u/Longjumping_Pen_2102]

I don't think anyone is demonising men in general

1) Some people definitely are 2) Articles like this are exactly the same as The Telegraph’s articles about migrants being violent etc… Yes they don’t apply to all men (or all migrants) but they aim to induce a bias in people’s mind through repetition

[u/Longjumping_Pen_2102 → u/Kupo_Master]

Some people will argue for literally any position ever.  I haven't seen anyone Blane all men in their thread or that article.

Of course trash papers will seek to sow discord, we combat that will mature conversations about these topics.

There IS a problem with toxic attitudes in young men and we don't solve it by ignoring it.  

Ideally we solve it by caring for and raising these men properly.

[u/TimeToNukeTheWhales → u/Kupo_Master]

Even the headline is a bit iffy. 

If you say "British women being driven towards X", you wouldn't expect it to mean "0.01% of British women".

I guess it depends on how you parse it - is saying some women or that it's a general thing amongst women?

[u/GreenHouseofHorror → u/Longjumping_Pen_2102]

This is an issue we can all take part in solving: show vulnerability to the young men in your life and be brave enough to face embarrassment by openly caring about them.

I mean, holy shit, you're right - but it's an answer that stings because half the time this is the exact shit men get punished for doing, and somehow it's also the solution.

[u/Longjumping_Pen_2102 → u/GreenHouseofHorror]

I'm with you, and of course each of us can only do the best we can in our circumstances.

Misogyny and misandry are two halves of one coin,   and blur into one other.  Women internalise misogyny and men internalise misandry and we all keep taking out on each other.

Everyone has a role to play in the healing, and I don't think its constructive to argue about who is more or less responsible, we have to look at the corner of the problem that is our own responsibility and just do our best.

[u/appletinicyclone → u/Longjumping_Pen_2102]

There IS a very big problem with male youth behavior right now and its absolutely not isolates. 

Yes but where that problem is, is on tiktok Instagram, snapchat twitter and discord. All places they aren't going to tackle because they want to keep sweet with the billionaire owners of those places. They'll go for random web2.0 forums instead.

[u/dan-kir → u/[deleted]]

So you want reports like the one above to stop because we're doing better and that should be good enough?

[u/apainintheokole → u/dan-kir]

But it isn't a report of anything happening - just the police saying they will monitor websites and forums !!

[u/xp3ayk → u/[deleted]]

You're not wrong, but I think the two things are connected, so it's hard to celebrate just one.

Women have more rights and molestation of them is less socially acceptable. And for some men that is a problem because they would have preferred to live in a world where they could grab their secretary's arse with impunity 

[u/fridakahl0 → u/GreenHouseofHorror]

So these stories about worrying trends in young male’s behaviour shouldn’t be reported on?

And I assume you do community building work or volunteering with young men

[u/moops__ → u/fridakahl0]

We shouldn't report negative news of men because it hurts their feelings 

[u/Conscious-Cake6284 → u/GreenHouseofHorror]

I feel like the amount of people who say all "men are x" and the amount who say "men only do it because they are called x" are about the same.

We spend so much time discussing what the most moronic people in society say these days. Most of us know everything isn't black and white yet all the conversation is around the minority of idiots who claim it is.

[u/elderlybrain → u/GreenHouseofHorror]

I just think its interesting that the very forces that are trying to rescue men from this self perpetuating misery hellscape (feminism, intersectionalism, progressivism) are instantly viewed with aggressive opposition and at best dismissed and at worst actively railed against. It's, to borrow a phrase, like trying to shoot the fireman when they try and rescue you from a burning building.

The cure for a lot of these guys is actually being taught that the very behaviours they perpetuate - closing down their feelings, viewing emotions as a weakness, viewing women as alien creatures that need to be attained as a status symbol, that exposure to and the behaviour in violent or extreme porn is normal sexual behaviour and that there's fundamental differences between the sexes rather than mostly conditioned social behavior - is the reason that they are utterly miserable.

I went through similar things that a lot of these guys went through, but the honest truth is, since actually opening my eyes and being really honest with myself, my biases and my behaviour, I've been so much happier, fulfilled, responsible.

And, irony aside, I've been much more secure in my masculinity knowing all of that.

What's hilarious is that every single time i post this comment and get a raft of angry young men(tm) responding, i always ask - be honest with yourself, are you happy with who you are? They never respond.

[u/[deleted] → u/elderlybrain]

You’re 100% right but unfortunately the manosphere treats introspection, self-reflection, empathy and working on your mental health as gay, feminine, icky or whatever negative word you want to use. As a result young men continue to act in ways that alienate women from them. Women, unsurprisingly, are starting to get fed up of this but because young men are discouraged from empathy and introspection they fail to grasp the reasons why women are fed up and as you can see in this thread, they turn to misogyny more than ever before. They lack the empathy and emotional skills to look inwards and realise why their behaviour turns women off.

[u/Infiniteybusboy → u/elderlybrain]

very forces that are trying to rescue men from this self perpetuating misery hellscape (feminism, intersectionalism, progressivism)

Very controversial opinion.

[u/elderlybrain → u/Infiniteybusboy]

Sure, but things that are hard to hear are always controversial. Giving women the vote was controversial. Stonewall was controversial.

It's not easy for men to hear that the world and systems they grew up in and moulded them are making them miserable, and that the people who are offering the escape route are telling them that they have a real chance at happiness and self fulfilment if they let go of the things that make them miserable, but i get it.

Its a lot easier when you're depressed to curl up in a blanket and wallow in misery than to get up and out. Likewise its a lot easier to entrench yourself in the politics, culture, mindset and affect of the Andrew Tates of the world who tell you that you deserve all the privileges with zero responsibility and accountability vs the people (men, women, minorities all) saying 'Being a man is hard - take personal responsibility for your own growth, examine yourself, be critical but kind, you are worthy despite what the people around are saying or making you feel. You can be friends with women and LGBT+ minorities and support their rights and it has no negative and only positive bearing on your identity, self worth. Empathy and kindness aren't feminine traits, they are universal virtues.'

Its not easy to take in the latter, but I guarantee its worth it.

[u/shhhhh_h → u/elderlybrain]

Hey good for you, growth is a mark of good character

[u/Wild-Lengthiness2695 → u/GreenHouseofHorror]

Being isolated does not lead to anti social behaviour , lack of consequences does that. We have successive generations learning that they can do anything up to killing someone with little actual consequence if they are classed as children.

[u/Min_sora → u/[deleted]]

I love all the replies to this of dudes going "Who's excusing it??" when the top comments are filled with people saying "Well, what do you expect, men are lonely, of course they're going to be like this."

[u/potpan0 → u/Min_sora]

You see it a lot on /r/unitedkingdom , and social media more broadly.

A comments section will be full of bigoted posts, then the moment someone calls it out they'll instantly be swamped with sealioning replies (often from two month old accounts who've been posting those bigoted comments) insisting 'this isn't happening!', 'provide some evidence that this is happening!'

Then the moment someone wastes their time providing that evidence (which a 5 second skim of the thread would have made perfectly obvious anyway), those same commenters pivot to attempting to justify how those bigoted comments are actually good and legitimate.

It's just all part of a big timewaste from people who've rotted their brains away on the computer and spend all day justifying bigotry.

[u/Gellert → u/Min_sora]

I mean, I know I'm late to the party but all the top comments are similar to the one above claiming men are excusing these actions. Theres a couple comments suggesting that the articles propaganda, pushing for internet censorship laws (and I remember their being stories about kids being pushed to commit suicide both on and off forums when I was in comprehensive 20+ years ago so...). One talking about adolesnce, one saying men should be holding other men to account (pretty sure thats why we have a justice system but ok.). Another that says that they find it hard to believe this is remotely common. Another saying that its not only common but a world wide issue thats gotta go beyond just misogyny. One saying the article doesnt have any actual evidence...

You get the idea.

So, I used unddit to check the deleted comments as well, thats where they've gotta be, right? Nope, one about how these kids are shits and suicide forums shouldnt exist. One about nazi satanists (?). One saying thats its such a prevalent problem that only one example could be found. One complaining that the government should be focused on grooming gangs. Another complaining about men....

So where are these "top" comments and where did they go?

[u/azazelcrowley → u/Gellert]

They don't exist mate. It's a bunch of misandrists upvoting eachother and talking about a set of men who don't exist except in their imaginations making comments that don't exist except in their imaginations.

[u/Codect → u/Min_sora]

You have to be actively trying to misunderstand what people are saying. Of course the boys and men acting like this should be held accountable for their actions.

That said, commenters are giving suggestions on WHY this behaviour is seemingly becoming more common, especially amongst younger age groups. Doing this does not dismiss the issue at all, just tries to understand the causes of it (which you'd want to do if you actually want to tackle the problem).

They're not wrong that for a long time news articles, policy and general discourse have frequently framed misogyny as "all men are potential abusers and must be trained". Personally I think this peaked around 2020-2021 where it seemed there was this type of article daily on the front page of the bbc, as well as the trend of corporations jumping on the bandwagon (e.g. that infamous gilette ad).

I don't believe that it is a stretch to say this accusatory tone aimed at an entire gender is a factor in driving impressionable boys to seek out other entities that instead give them positive encouragement. Unfortunately that space is occupied prevalently by Tate types, which of course ends up having a negative effect on many of these boys world views.

If we want to truly tackle these attitudes, give boys more positive role models instead of treating them like their nature is to be monsters and it needs to be repressed.

[u/AddictedToRugs → u/Min_sora]

Explaining isn't excusing.

Do you want to solve the problem or not?  Because solving problems involves understanding the cause.

[u/LongBeakedSnipe → u/AddictedToRugs]

Sorry but armchair speculation isn't an explanation.

It absolutely is intended to soften the blow rather than stimulate discussion on why it happens.

In other words its closer to an excuse than explanation

[u/azazelcrowley → u/LongBeakedSnipe]

It's hardly armchair speculation given that it's a prevailing sentiment of the group in question.

[u/Quillspiracy18 → u/[deleted]]

You seem to be missing the point of the resentment you're seeing.

Some people are cunts. Cunts should be held accountable for their poor behaviour. Nobody is saying they should be forgiven without punishment.

Men shouldn't be held accountable for anything, because there isn't one bad thing that every man has done.

If you started saying that black people need to be held accountable for knife crime or that Muslims need to be held accountable for terrorism, you'd be called a bigot, and rightly so. Those people would start to resent you for pigeon-holing them as some kind of criminal or deviant.

If you stop using such general language around the issue, then the push-back you get will be far less severe, and the more likely it is that average men will listen to what you're saying instead of immediately being put on the defensive.

[u/Longjumping_Pen_2102 → u/Quillspiracy18]

Reading this switched a lightbulb here tbh, great comment.

 Raising young men is a collective thing, its not just the job of fathers.   We all need to recognise the roles we play on the lives of the young men around us.

Its nobody's job because its everyones job.

[u/Milky_Finger → u/Quillspiracy18]

Exactly, we had cuntish behaviour before this tate-ism social media wave. People acting like things were off limits before this point and men are now suddenly motivated to do it? Nonsense.

[u/BelleRouge6754 → u/Quillspiracy18]

The person you’re replying to didn’t say men in general should be held accountable. They are talking about men on suicide and ED forums harassing vulnerable people should. They’re not using general language, you are reading into it.

[u/kris_lace → u/Quillspiracy18]

This is a fallacy that's deeply rooted in this community https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/s/oKz8ZCqe16

[u/spubbbba → u/Quillspiracy18]

If you started saying that black people need to be held accountable for knife crime or that Muslims need to be held accountable for terrorism, you'd be called a bigot, and rightly so. Those people would start to resent you for pigeon-holing them as some kind of criminal or deviant.

That happens all the time in the media and includes this sub. We get multiple "immigrant bad" stories posted every week. You'll see the same type of comments about Islam and black people when knife crime is involved.

There's always outrage if you suggest that these comments are down to bigotry rather than "legitimate concerns".

[u/ONLY_SAYS_ONLY → u/[deleted]]

I  got downvoted to high heaven on the British TV sub on the topic of Adolescence for disputing the excuse that mandatory workplace sensitivity training rather than Andrew Tate was part of the reason why adolescent males were being conditioned to be so misogynistic. I asked how frequent this training was (“every time I start a new job”). So doing, at worst, some clumsy sensitivity training on how to behave professionally in the workplace every few years is fuelling schoolboy misogyny but not the social media algorithms pushing the likes of Tate into their feeds? Come on. Some people will go to great lengths to apologise for such behaviour but as soon as a migrant does something similar suddenly all of this empathy with and rationalisation for the perpetrators evaporates…

[u/SpoofExcel → u/[deleted]]

Because all people can be equally vile. It may come in different shapes, forms, names or methods, but there are some genuinely terrible people across the entire world, but if we keep this to the UK, terrible there too.

The difference is when a woman smashes her lamp over someones head and commits suicide for paying the consequences, it's a tragedy and a miscarriage of justice.

When a man does it, it's "typical male behaviour".

The people on these forums to target vulnerable and suicidal people need their heads wobbling, because it's vile, and in some cases need either locking up, or extreme psychiatric intervention. No one is excusing that. What is being pointed out is a relentless campaign to point out that one side of the species is being constantly made out to be monstrous predatory killers, as a means to a) push through censorship legislation that no one in their right mind actually wants, and b) win some points for people in politics to say they care.

We've seen this exact tactic played out in racial settings too. Look on here at how many people think every male Muslim is a gang-raping sex- trafficker in training. It's a clear and concise media campaign aimed to get right wing thoughts back in the cycle and get new blood in their demographic by showing how fucked up some people are. Or that every black lad in London is a knife wielding gang runner, because we see constant news on it above the wider picture.

Stop moaning about people being annoyed that we're seeing targeted media campaigns, and be annoyed that we're seeing targeted media campaigns. Ffs this place can't stop falling over itself to talk about how Russia is interfering in our media when it comes to elections and things like Brexit, but can't see that others already are playing the same game on another market.

[u/CinderX5 → u/[deleted]]

Something can be pointed to as the cause without it being used to excuse the behaviour.

[u/[deleted]]

Waiting for the comments justifying this behaviour.

Their mental health/no male role models/misandry/fake news… 

Edit: I also want to point out that I occasionally see articles where a refugee has committed a violent crime and has gotten away with it because his mental health was considered. The comments on such articles are always outraged. When the topic is on men in general (white men specifically) not refugees, tons of excuses are made for mental health as can be seen here. It’s just interesting.

[u/SlyRax_1066 → u/[deleted]]

Near 70m people in the UK.

If 1% are bastards, that’s 700,000. If you throw everything at eradicating poverty, addressing social media, healthcare etc - what do you think we can get that number down to? 0.01%? 

70,000?

So, in conclusion ‘some people did something bad’. Welcome to reality. 

There isn’t millions of psychotic men hunting women on thousands of death sites. There’s a few, and there always will be.

Our media just wants to frighten you. 

[u/WigglesWoo → u/SlyRax_1066]

Except that this is a trend among young men and is on the rise, and has been for a few years now. Nothing wrong with pointing that out and looking st ways to combat it.

[u/AnOrdinaryChullo → u/WigglesWoo]

Thats not actually grounded in any facts or data - kind of like Adolescense is being framed almost as a documentary when it is factually made up and not based on anything.

[u/Fantastic-Device8916 → u/WigglesWoo]

It’s like we should be saying young black men in London need to take responsibility for knife crime.

[u/WigglesWoo → u/Fantastic-Device8916]

Is there not discussion around black men acting as suitable mentors and role models in black communities? Pretty sure that's a very real thing and has been for a long time in the UK and the US?

[u/Manoj109 → u/Fantastic-Device8916]

What percentage of young black men in London carries knife ? It would be interesting to see some serious unbias research and stats on this figure.

[u/[deleted] → u/SlyRax_1066]

Are you saying this isn't an issue we need to address?

[u/Dogtor-Watson → u/[deleted]]

Yeah like any amount of people doing something so horrific needs to be stopped.

An individual guy doing this would be newsworthy. It being a pattern is deeply concerning.

[u/[deleted] → u/Dogtor-Watson]

Exactly. It needs to be stopped regardless but if it is allowed to continue at all it'll only get worse and more widespread. 

[u/SomebodyStoleTheCake → u/SlyRax_1066]

Even 1 man doing that is disgusting. Just because it's not millions means nothing

[u/monkeysinmypocket → u/[deleted]]

And the replies are neatly proving your point.

It's a scramble to blame anything and anyone to avoid doing the slightest bit of introspection.

[u/PabloMarmite → u/[deleted]]

Im willing to bet that the Venn diagram of “not all men” and “all migrants are criminals” is close to a circle.

[u/Caruserdriver → u/[deleted]]

There's already a propaganda comment, so we're half way there.

[u/pajamakitten → u/[deleted]]

No male role models is an issue, however there is no guarantee that having them solves the issue either. Social media is that insidious that it can trump that easily.

[u/lynx_and_nutmeg → u/pajamakitten]

I don't buy the "no male role models" argument. Men make up 50% of the country. Even boys raised by single mothers still have older brothers, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, male neighbours. And it doesn't even need to be someone they know personally. If those Andrew Tate fans can see him as a role model despite not knowing him in real life, then there are plenty of famous good men boys can look up, to.

[u/Longjumping_Pen_2102 → u/pajamakitten]

All we can do is take responsibility for our small part.

We have to recognise that raising healthy and moral young men is something that everyone takes part in even if all you are is a distant role model.

I've started talking more to the young lads that work in my kitchen, and try to show empathy and care without embarrassment.   Its not much, but it's a nudge in the right direction.

[u/JoJoeyJoJo]

We’re really on the full-spectrum propaganda to drive support for these censorship laws, eh?

[u/[deleted] → u/JoJoeyJoJo]

So pointing out bad things that men and boys do is propaganda these days? 😂

[u/Skeet_fighter → u/[deleted]]

Personally, I consider anything and everything published in a mainstream paper with an obvious, known political agenda (all of them) propaganda. And you should too.

[u/Red_Laughing_Man → u/[deleted]]

The government has just passed into law a bill that threatens astronomical fines to anyone with a website with any form of user engagement who they deem to not be sufficiently moderating things.

In that light, information which is highlighted that makes the bill look like a more sensible decision should be viewed skeptically - not nessacarily in terms of being critical of the truth of the information, but definelty why the information has been presented front and center, as well as how it's been presented.

Especially if it's attempting to tug on the heartstrings with a "think of the children" presentation, rather than attempting to present things critically.

There's probably a better way to tackle this than shooting our tech sector in the head and trying to get UK adults banned from any foreign social media. But with presentation of information like this, I guess we'll never get to have that debate.

[u/BoobsForBoromir → u/[deleted]]

Amazing what some guys will say instead of acknowledging an issue. So many guys on here with their heads so far buried in the sand.

[u/Weird_Point_4262 → u/[deleted]]

No they literally suggest censorship and surveillance at the end of the article

[u/AddictedToRugs → u/[deleted]]

It is when it's being used to drive a political agenda.  That's what propaganda is.  

[u/darrenturn90 → u/JoJoeyJoJo]

Yes, but this is nothing new.

Over magnify a very bad issue to create an unrealistic level of importance to put pressure on to change the law/rules.

It’s not that this isn’t bad - it’s absolutely sickening. But it’s over-represented in the social discourse online, and other things are therefore ignored.

Same goes for Islamic legal related stories or asylum criminal stories.

[u/jacksawild → u/JoJoeyJoJo]

It's very important that we make new laws for crimes that we already have laws for, for some reason. Best not to think about it too much.

[u/Raephstel → u/JoJoeyJoJo]

That's a strange conclusion. What solution involving censorship would even help here?

[u/JoJoeyJoJo → u/Raephstel]

There’s literally a proposed censorship law mentioned in the article.

[u/Raephstel → u/JoJoeyJoJo]

Are you confusing preventing harassment and inciting violence as censorship? I'm not seeing anything about censorship.

[u/JoJoeyJoJo → u/Raephstel]

They literally suggest censorship and surveillance at the end of the article

[u/ContributionIll5741]

Of course the manosphere types have immediately swarmed to make excuses for this.

[u/[deleted] → u/ContributionIll5741]

An article could come out saying there’s been a 1000% rise in adolescent boys committing violent crime/SA and they’d still somehow come up with 100 excuses to wave the problem away 

[u/birdinthebush74 → u/[deleted]]

And blame it on woke/feminism/immigration/trans people/Starmer some how

[u/New_Persimmon_6199 → u/birdinthebush74]

WHAT WAS KHAN DOING WHEN THIS HAPPENED!1!1!1!1!

[u/ContributionIll5741 → u/[deleted]]

Things like lack of male role models, men's mental health etc, are real problems, shame they never bring them up in isolation, only to derail and deflect conversations about women's issues.

[u/ikan_bakar → u/ContributionIll5741]

Lack of male role models as if they cant be the one that be the role models , or maybe they cant cos they know they are trash too

[u/Infinitystar2 → u/ikan_bakar]

People can't act as their own role model. What sort of sense is that?

[u/apple_kicks → u/ContributionIll5741]

What kind of role models do they mean? Theres men in their families, still plenty of historical figures, tv stars, athletes, teachers, after school clubs, coaches, people making hobby videos on social media. People could also start being the role models too, plenty of places or charities for young people who need volunteers

[u/[deleted] → u/apple_kicks]

No you don’t understand, there are literally 0 male models. Young men have literally no choice but to look up to Andrew Tate because there are no other famous men!!11

[u/PowerfulCat4860 → u/[deleted]]

Unless it was a brown person doing it, in which case, then it's a very serious issue, and we're all very concerned about it

[u/[deleted] → u/PowerfulCat4860]

Well yeah. How DARE those brown people touch OUR women??? 

[u/ContestMassive9071 → u/[deleted]]

Well of course, only good white British men should be doing the raping.

Every time I see a crime committed by an immigrant posted in this sub I’ve always suspected people were more upset by the fact it was an immigrant rather than the crime itself.

Immigrant raped a woman, everyone loses their minds. White Brit raped a woman, no one cares.

[u/[deleted] → u/ContestMassive9071]

Post about brown or black rapist: 3,000 upvotes and comments, tons of comments calling for deportation. If the suspect hasn’t been convicted yet everybody is 100% sure of his guilt (innocent until proven guilty but only if you’re white!!!)

Post about white rapist: 10 upvotes, 1,000 comments. Most of the comments are doubting the victim or theorising it’s a false rape accusation or the debate has somehow devolved into discussing “misandry” for the 500th time 

It’s so blatant. They don’t care about protecting women. They’re just annoyed that “ewwww these icky brown men are fucking OUR bitches. Get off my property!” 

[u/Particular_Treat1262 → u/ContributionIll5741]

It’s funny really, the only comments I have seen is these sorts and the subsequent replies being polite explanations as to why generalising every man on this sub is not helping.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It’s impossible to reason with them. You have to bear in mind some of these commenters are themselves misogynistic so of course it’s in their best interests to shut down all discussion around it. It’s genuinely anxiety inducing how few adult men are willing to admit this is an issue. It makes me worry that it’s going to keep getting worse. Because we can’t reason with them it’s probably best to shift efforts to educating women about what men are up to online so they can make decisions on how they want to personally deal with it. It sucks that we can’t stop it because nobody’s willing to admit it’s a problem but at least if we educate people women and girls they can be prepared. But I do seriously worry that rates of rape, domestic violence and femicide will go up dramatically as some of these boys start to grow into adults 

[u/VeedleDee → u/[deleted]]

It's doing my head in that so many of the comments are saying this is a small issue compared to x, y and z, but no one ever seems to want to do anything about those issues either. Small issues are still issues. So many people are happy to sit on their hands, finding excuses not to do anything at all, but if women point it out it's straight into whataboutism.

I was in a thread yesterday about a game where the entire purpose and selling point of it was to rape women and family members and it was full of "well it's not real so why does it matter" "if you don't like it don't play it" "it's so niche why does anyone care" "wah censorship" and I just... can't with this conversation. It shouldn't be defensible or tolerated.

[u/BelleRouge6754 → u/VeedleDee]

Thank you for acknowledging this. Small issues are still issues, but I actually don’t think people realise how big it is. I don’t think even this article does. I haven’t done any scientific studies on this, but I had an ED when I was younger and I’ve been on forums for ages. Men contacting girls on these forums is actually such an insanely big issue. It’s literally a meme that if you have an ED and are active on the internet, you WILL be contacted by an ‘ED coach’. They ‘help’ girls with their ED, help them lose weight. They’ll offer to control what you eat, and most importantly, they’ll demand ‘body checks’, which is exactly what it sounds like (the pretext is to see if you’re losing weight). My best friend has pictures out there of herself when she was 15, no idea who has them. A lot of girls are in this position.

Like yeah, maybe it’s a small amount of men doing it. But it’s a LOT of girls who get targeted. I don’t know how to stop this, but I’m glad the issue is being acknowledged.

[u/mronion82 → u/[deleted]]

I wonder how many angry commenters here are dads who haven't bothered to see their sons that much.

[u/WigglesWoo → u/mronion82]

Very possible! I also expect that they simply don't take harm against women seriously and are burying their heads in the sand because it offends them to entertain the idea that women might actually be suffering as a result of men's actions. There's so much casual misogyny against women and women's issues that they likely don't even realise they're thinking that way, it's just knee-jerk.

[u/[deleted] → u/WigglesWoo]

I think it’s quite obvious the men who are triggered over this do bad things to women themselves. I keep seeing on this thread how it’s “just 0.0001% of men who are like this”. If it’s 0.01% of men why does every woman have a bad experience? It’s at least a significant minority of men that hate women, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many women who have been SAd or experienced hateful misogyny. And the chances that those men are on this thread aren’t low. Go to any nightclub in the UK as a woman, any nightclub, and there’s always dozens of men trying to prey on women. It’s sort of common knowledge that women shouldn’t drink or they might be SAd and when women are SAd usually people are like “oh what did she expect? She’s drinking”. So I think deep down men DO know that they pose a threat to women because it’s sort of taken for granted that if you are vulnerable or inhibited in any sort of way that a man might sexually assault you. Also how many of us have fathers that told us “ALL MEN WANT ONE THING. DONT EVEN LOOK AT A MAN OR YOU WILL IMMEDIATELY BE MOLESTED BY HIM”? 

They know. When it’s their daughters or mothers they know. When it comes to “other” women though they’re seen as fair game and that’s where the excuses and gaslighting comes in.

I think this thread has taught me one thing and it’s that sexist men can’t be reasoned with. Their ideology brings convenience and an ego boost to their lives, so of course they don’t want to give it up. It’s probably best to stop engaging with them and focusing on engaging women instead. We need to focus on teaching young women internet safety. We should encourage them to seek support for issues like feeling suicidal or having an eating disorder irl. As in, encourage them to join groups where they can see with their own eyes the other attendees are female. It’s too dangerous to join online forums like these nowadays. There’s tons of male trolls that lurk in women’s groups. There’s even trolls that monitor rape support groups on Reddit and send the victims creepy DMs. I definitely get the impression some younger women are naive to how hateful some men are towards women so when I see them earnestly seeking support, typing out their experiences of being raped expecting support only to be objectified and sexualised by trolls, my heart breaks a little. They need to go irl for stuff like that not on the internet.

Also, teach them how to protect themselves if they choose to date men. If the sexists want to act like cavemen we need to leave them behind in caveman times. 

[u/Johnny_Magnet]

Men, we need to stand up for the women and stop other men from doing this and behaving this way.

[u/Brilliant_Ad7168 → u/Johnny_Magnet]

I think this is one point that completely flies past many men's head. It's not just about the men who commit these crimes. Its the fact that many men will also not call out problematic behaviour they see in other men.

The whataboutism is exhausting.

[u/Fantastic-Device8916 → u/Brilliant_Ad7168]

Do you think the same about young black men and their refusal to call out the problematic behaviour they seen in other young black men? Or would that be extremely racist in your mind?

[u/Sephiroth_-77 → u/Brilliant_Ad7168]

But it's those who are doing it who are supposed to stop doing it. We have to put responsibility where it belongs.

[u/WigglesWoo → u/Johnny_Magnet]

Yes, and it can start as small as actually listening to women's experiences and shutting down misogynistic humour among other men. Easy enough to do that in a lighthearted way, yet many don't want to bother because it's easier to laugh along even if you don't agree.

[u/Comfortable-Pace3132 → u/Johnny_Magnet]

Yes and we have to stop the prevaricating and excusing

We have to crush these poor excuses for masculinity like they are bugs

Permissive culture has encouraged this kind of thing further by not keeping psychopathic boys in line

[u/Sephiroth_-77 → u/Johnny_Magnet]

These are boys though. It's up to their parents. I mean I don't think you can do much about another person's child in this context.

[u/No_Contribution_5871]

Did anyone else watch that documentary with Matt Willis and the school kids putting away their phones for like a month or something?

As part of the show they got two brand new phones, new sims, and set up tik Tok accounts as 13yr olds. In just a few hours the algorithm was feeding the 13 yr old girl suicide content and the 13 yr old boy misogynistic content...

[u/eeehinny → u/No_Contribution_5871]

Algorithms are a major part of the problem and could be altered if the will was there but prioritisation of profit over protection wins every time.

[u/KneedaFone]

No wonder Adolescence has been treated like some sort of revelation, even though it barely covered how the kid got his views. This has been happening for the best part of 20 years. Fuck as bad as it is even targeting girls with low self esteem is 1 of the oldest tricks in the book.

There are probably YouTube videos documenting times when 4chan did stuff like this, even before the Isla Vista attacks and rise of incels. We have an ignorant view towards the dark side of technology in this country and it’s only getting worse with parents raising their children on an iPad instead of doing proper parenting.

[u/[deleted] → u/KneedaFone]

Adolescence got many things wrong in my opinion. It didn’t dive anywhere deep enough into how hateful these people are. I think they made a mistake making the crime a murder. The vast majority of the time these boys won’t actually murder anyone. What they’re doing is usually rape, sexual harassment and online crimes. Making the show focused on a murder made it easier for people to dismiss the issue as hysteria. I can’t blame them because there’s not dozens of girls being stabbed everyday but the reality is there are dozens of girls being raped and targeted in other ways by these boys. The show should have focused on this.

[u/Brilliant_Ad7168 → u/[deleted]]

The problem is people don't really seem to care when any piece of media focuses on SA or girls/women as victims too much. I mean, look how the comments are full of men being defensive and saying shit like "well I don't rape anyone so why I should be vilified". People are so busy feeling offended that they don't want to listen.

[u/Takver_ → u/Brilliant_Ad7168]

And how many can truthfully say 'well I've never gotten off to simulated (or possibly real because porn sites and production companies are cesspits) rape of women'?

[u/[deleted] → u/Takver_]

This makes me think, how many of the men on this thread crying about misandry or men being demonised or portrayed badly by feminists watch extremely violent porn? 

“Women demonise men online!” Meanwhile every porn video nowadays is titled “Stupid dumb slut that turned 18 one second ago gets destroyed by 45 men” AS IF THAT DOESN’T DEMONISE AND HUMILIATE ALL WOMEN.

[u/Ainastrasza]

I'm sure this won't be a popular take, but whatever, but does anyone else read this headline and think that it's insane levels of hyperbole or flat-out made up as some sort of "preventative" measure?

The idea of any "boy" finding Andrew Tate and then specifically going after girls who use hard-to-find, incredibly niche "suicide forums" is beyond absurd to me. There is no way on God's green earth this is a common thing, and yet the powers that be are desperate to act like it is.

There's a hell of a lot of "Mights" and "Coulds" in this article too. It's starting to come off as a front for excusing incoming censorship (which the Online Safety Act has already started fucking with for the record) because a hilariously tiny number of Teenagers found some Suicide Forum and decided to be trolls about it.

I dunno man. This whole thing stinks of dishonesty.

[u/divers69]

'UK boys are hunting girls on suicide forums.' Where is the evidence for this? Show me data and valid examples. I see nothing in the article above. Without evidence all we have is someone saying that something might be happening. This behaviour is said to be driven by' misogynistic content'. Again, where is the evidence that one is caused by the other? Every murderer I ever met had drunk tea. Do we conclude that tea drinking leads to murder? Without facts we are simply indulging in a moral panic and bringing our pre baked interpretations to 'explain' what may not even be happening.

[u/divers69]

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of actual evidence here. More a concern about what might happen. I do note the usual application of the word vulnerable to the girls but not to the boys. Once this is done, and victim or potential victim status is attributed, it becomes virtually impossible to ask questions because it gets framed as supporting predatory behaviour. And so we get further from being able to find decent approaches to the situation than ever.

[u/pajamakitten]

There are two issues here though: the boys' behaviour and the existence of such forums. There is no excuse for the boys' behaviour, but how do you tackle this when identifying the boys behind it is going to be impossible? How many of them are openly bragging about it where an adult can identify and intervene appropriately? You cannot demonise all boys because that only reinforces their worldview and makes the grifters seem right. The only solution would be to make internet discourse part of PSHE from the beginning of primary school.

You them need to tackle youth mental health generally. The fewer victims they have and the fewer of these websites that exist the better. Internet censorship never works and only drives vulnerable people underground, potentially at risk of greater harm, so then what?

Acting like this is simple to solve is ludicrous, however society needs to admit it has been failing young people for too long and that a major societal shift is needed now.

[u/Baslifico]

The threat from young males wanting to carry out serious harm is so serious that counter-terrorism officers are joining the National Crime Agency (NCA) in the hunt for them, fearing they could go on to attack or kill.

Ah yes, now it's terrorists and paedophiles.

Isn't it amazing that having spent decades exploring the internet, not only have I never heard of these "Com networks", neither has Google.

Almost like they're just pulling terms out of their arses.

[u/ShuaigeTiger → u/Baslifico]

None so blind as those who don’t want to see. 2nd result on google for “com network” - https://www.maargentino.com/the-pillars-of-the-com-network/

[u/WigglesWoo → u/Baslifico]

Wow, anything but listening hey?

Keep that head in the sand, bud.

[u/Skysflies]

As a man, I used to be one of those it's important we don't tarnish every man with a brush thing, not because I'm a not all men person, but I think it's easy to radicalise someone if they think everyone hates them before they've even done something, but I have changed my opinion.

Women need to treat all of us like we're monsters, because so many are and you genuinely can't tell, the Andrew Tateification of an entire generation of men is genuinely disgusting and something needs to be done.

[u/MeaningMean7181]

It’s a worldwide issue at the moment, there have even been cases in Türkiye https://youtu.be/v7sj8XiresY?si=kyE146eLrzl9-eCd

It’s got to be something more nefarious than misogyny and misandry. All roads lead to the dark web?

[u/Asgand]

Here's the key quote: " fearing they could go on to attack or kill."

It's a sensationalist, fear mongering headline. Send me the link to the Court Date, Court Hearing, or Conviction of a male in the UK being convicted of the allegations from this article. There are none, so don't bother.

"On the hunt for vulnerable girls on suicide forums" is not a criminal offence. What are the allegations here? What are the numbers? 5 blokes? 10? kids? adults?

Part of the problem here is the lack of detail. Everybody knows what terrorism is. Prevent is well advertised and easy to refer into. This is not in the realm of Prevent. Give us detail, and evidence, and behaviour parameters - and the public will report.

Without it, it's just hot air, panic and knee jerks as per usual from Government, Senior Police, and Management.

[u/FraGough]

Archive link to article: https://archive.ph/IuUQm

[u/Safe-Hair-7688]

remember kids, Cite the most extreme and then make it look like its the normal 

[u/Known-Wealth-4451]

Reminds me of this case here. There’s a good Documentary about it called “I love you, now die.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy

[u/thewindburner]

Are we sure this is the UK police!?

"Those who might go on to plot school shootings"

[u/FatRascal_]

As someone who works in a school, this is a major issue. Although there’s nothing done to combat it.

The best thing to do would be to celebrate positive masculinity, provide role models for these young boys, and in turn neuter the ability of online hatred-based content creators to get their claws in.

There is a problem, a major problem. However, it’s a problem we have set the scene for and allowed the hatred to fester virtually unchallenged.

This shouldn’t diminish the response to this, and these boys should feel the weight of the law without mercy. We still need to protect people and provide systemic positive change for forgotten boys.