“He was in his room, we thought he was safe. What harm could he do in there?” If you saw the Netflix series Adolescence, in which Jamie, a 13-year-old boy, murders a classmate, fueled by the consumption of misogynistic content online, you’ll remember the words his parents uttered as they beat themselves up and cried: “Should we have done more?”

But the questions raised by the series go beyond parents and extend to the platforms that design the paths for information to reach teenagers’ screens. This is the subject of a series of investigations, the latest of which is a two-month study conducted in Brazil, which shows the subtle ways in which algorithms help to construct a sexist and violent universe.

The Brazilian findings confirm studies such as those by University College London and the University of Kent, which previously stated that “harmful views and tropes are now becoming normalized among young people. Online consumption is impacting young people’s offline behaviours, as we see these ideologies moving off screens and into school yards.”

The most recent case in Mexico is an example of this shift. At the end of September, 19-year-old Lex Ashton arrived at school and stabbed a 16-year-old student. Ashton, it was later revealed, was part of a large group of incels (involuntary celibates) who blame and attack women for not wanting to have relationships with them. In this forum, which includes 82,000 people, members complain of rejection and frustration in romantic relationships. “There are incels who haven’t even had any friends. The longest conversation I’ve had with a girl in my entire life was one minute. My presence makes them uncomfortable, it disgusts them, and they reject me,” said one. Another stated: “I don’t have a partner because I can’t, but I don’t make an effort because I’m not financially able to.”

These kinds of ideas about economic or physical status, phrases like “high-maintenance” women or men, are increasingly appearing on social media and podcasts, fueling each other. Just a few minutes on TikTok is enough to fill your head with videos featuring phrases that seem to come from the past — “Men tend to notice women who are beautiful, fertile, and young. Women look for physical appearance and long-term security“ — uttered by supposed masculinity gurus; or videos that pop up unbidden containing statements such as ”women only have two professions: being a mother or being a prostitute,” voiced by a former police officer who has gone viral among young people.

This last account appeared frequently in the monitoring conducted by two Brazilian media outlets. Núcleo and Revista AzMina, two research sites on technology and gender, created two fictional TikTok profiles: João, born in 2009, and Kaio, born in 2010, which interacted on the platform for two months. The two accounts, featuring fictional 14- and 15-year-old owners, began receiving innocuous videos about technology and food. “As they interacted with motivational and religious posts, they began to be exposed to far-right content, political misinformation, and discourse that reinforces gender stereotypes,” the research explains.

The content that reached these fictional teenagers also included information about tax evasion and the promotion of evangelical churches, mixed with motivational and self-help posts, followed by police content. That’s when, according to the investigation, videos began appearing about “how to be men of courage” to “deserve women of courage,” and others that openly speak ill of women who are sexually active, don’t cook, or aren’t submissive. “I don’t expect love from my wife. I only expect her to honor and obey me,” or “a woman’s ability to be faithful diminishes with every man who touches her,” can be seen in Amoedo’s profile, one of the most-viewed among Brazilian teenagers.

Nucleo and AzMina point out that — despite TikTok’s stated protection policies, such as setting private profiles for children under 16 — their monitoring revealed flaws in the platform’s security policies and they managed, for example, to easily remove the private profile setting. While they admit there’s no evidence that TikTok’s algorithm prioritizes such content, they point out that “simply recommending it violates the platform’s guidelines for protecting children and adolescents.”

How teenagers connect

The huge number of teenagers connected to this platform adds further fuel to the debate. Official data on the number of users is unknown, but Statista estimates that 136 million people are on TikTok in Latin America (the platform only allows accounts to be created by those aged 13 and above). In Brazil alone, it has 91 million users. According to the TIC Kids Online Brasil 2024 survey, among the population aged nine to 17 in Brazil, 93% access the internet, and 50% use TikTok every day. Furthermore, among those surveyed aged 11 to 17, 22% reported spending less time with family, friends, or doing homework due to excessive internet use.

Safernet Brasil, an NGO working on responsible internet use, also reports that TikTok has been among the 10 most-reported online domains worldwide for violence or discrimination against women since 2020, ranking first in 2021 and 2022.

In Argentina, where Kids Online was recently released, data shows widespread use by children and adolescents. Eighty percent use social media every day or almost every day. TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are the most used. Argentine children aged between nine and 11 use YouTube the most, while 12- to 14-year-olds prefer TikTok, which is also the most-viewed platform by girls in that age group.

The study, titled Girls, Boys, and Teenagers Online, also looked at “access to potentially negative content,” specifically among 12- to 17-year-olds, and found that “approximately two-thirds reported seeing content about ‘ways to lose weight, or be slimmer’ on online sites or publications (67%), as well as ‘easy ways to make money online’ (64%). Just over half reported having been exposed to ‘discriminatory messages against other people or groups of people, for example: based on their skin color, country of origin, or religion’ (55%); ‘bloody or violent images’ (53%); and ‘people sharing their experiences with alcohol, marijuana, or other drug use’ (52%).”

Rubén Garrido, a historian and teacher at public schools in Buenos Aires, says he sees it every day with his 14-year-old students. First, there’s content about typical teenage doubts, tips on how to flirt, information about nutrition and exercise, mixed with pseudoscientific content: influencers talking about testosterone, who claim, without any scientific basis, that people should stop eating soy because it “turns them into women.” “That discourse is sinking in.”

Then, Garrido says, confirming the findings from Brazil, videos about “the value of women” begin to appear. “And since current masculinity is largely devoid of role models, these consumption channels become hooked on models that present a ‘triumphant masculinity,’ explained through a biological lens of concepts like ‘alpha’ and ‘beta,’ and the supposed worth of men,” he adds.

Recently, after a triple femicide in Buenos Aires, the victims of which were tortured, Garrido highlighted how these social media narratives intertwine with real life. “They told me the victims ‘were worthless’ (because one of them was a sex worker) or that they were asking for it,” he said. “They tried to analyze their reality from the perspective of the information curated and highlighted on social media. They interpret concrete reality through these narratives in which worth is measured by the number of sexual encounters, or by the parameters they consume in videos and reels.” The result, moreover, is the normalization and desensitization of certain forms of violence.

This is how the ‘manosphere’ works

In Colombia, the Karisma Foundation, an organization that promotes human rights and social justice in digital contexts, has been analyzing sexist discourse on the internet since 2014. It launched the Machitroll Alert, a campaign that used humor to highlight misogynistic discourse. Catalina Moreno, co-director of Karisma, says that in light of the platforms and the changes the internet has undergone in recent years, we need to investigate in detail how the “manosphere” works, asking ourselves what’s going on in the minds of young people who gather to share anti-female discourse on social media and also on platforms like Reddit, Twitch, or Discord.

“If we look at the content, we notice that the materials that go viral tend to be provocative, and among them, there are many of a misogynistic nature,” she says. The most recent studies on the manosphere, she adds, show that very young people are drawn to these spaces out of solitude, sometimes even with good intentions, but find themselves trapped by sensationalist discourse and the algorithm. Moreno suggests that we also need to promote new agreements for sexual-affective relationships and mentions Karisma’s Sexting School, a space with materials, tips, and reflections on the exploration of sexuality and the informed use of technologies.

The responsibility of platforms

The UK-based Safer Scrolling research, which monitored teens for seven days, showed that toxic content is delivered to adolescents through entertainment, with the biggest problem occurring in the “For You” feed on TikTok. In addition to watching 1,000 videos during that period, the researchers interviewed young people who consume and produce radical content online to help create a series of archetypes of adolescent males who might be vulnerable to radicalization. They created TikTok accounts for each archetype and began searching for content about masculinity or loneliness.

The conclusion was that after just five days of TikTok use, there was a fourfold increase in the level of misogynistic content displayed on the “For You” feed, with information that included objectification, sexual harassment, or disparagement of women. Initially, as in the Brazilian monitoring, the content matched the archetype, but later became more extreme. “In this way, toxic, hateful, or misogynistic material is pushed towards young people, exploiting adolescents’ existing vulnerabilities. Children who suffer from poor mental health, bullying, or anxieties about their future are at greater risk,” the researchers indicated.

Through its Latin American branch, TikTok responded that its moderation approach combines technology with human review, with a team of 40,000 people who undergo regular training to better detect “developing hateful behavior, offensive symbols, terms, and stereotypes.”

It reported that moderation is carried out in several stages, including video upload and further reviews based on community complaints or increased popularity of the content, and that between January and March 2025 alone, the platform removed “more violating content than ever before: over 87% of videos were removed and over 19 million live streams were discontinued, a 50% increase from the previous quarter.”

In the case of Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil, the platform told this newspaper, more than 10 million videos were removed; more than 99% of the infringing content was removed before anyone reported it, and over 90% was removed before receiving any views.

In Brazil, in 2024, the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) opened an administrative proceeding against TikTok for its no-registration feed feature, which allows users to watch videos without creating a profile. The ANPD identified that this feature could expose children and adolescents to inappropriate content in violation of the General Law on the Protection of Personal Data.

The platform stated that in the first quarter of 2025, more than 21 million accounts identified as belonging to children under 13 were removed. It also stated that accounts for people aged between 13 and 15 are private by default and have multiple features disabled for their security. Those of 16- and 17-year olds cannot broadcast live or receive gifts. In all cases, it promotes the use of Family Sync. Notifications for minors are disabled at night.

TikTok says it’s working on “new features to create a safe and positive environment where teens can express themselves and discover content responsibly.” One of these features, called “Manage Topics,” allows users to customize how often content related to more than 10 popular topics, ranging from creative arts to travel, nature, and sports, is recommended to their feed.

Sign up for our weekly newsletterto get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition

Source link