The Australian government’s commitment to online censorship is playing out in yet another way – the perceived harmful influence social platforms have on young men and boys.
Aligned media outlets agree these sites are showing too much content that is branded as misogynistic and promoting harmful gender stereotypes.
Meanwhile, government ministers want to see the companies behind platforms “do” (aka, censor) more.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, known for her pro-censorship stance, and Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth are both quoted in a Guardian article about an “experiment” the outlet carried out by setting up fake accounts representing “generic 24-year-old males” on Facebook and Instagram.
The accounts did not interact – the goal was to see what would be showing up in their algorithmically-recommended feeds. And that the device and the email used to sign up were new, was apparently enough for the Guardian to believe they were safe from Meta’s tracking.
The article’s conclusion is that over the following several months, the feeds started to “veer into more highly sexist content,” especially on Facebook.
But it looks like the majority were memes about sitcoms, Star Wars, “dudebro” memes, Daily Mail, etc., news posts, while Instagram’s biggest “offense” seems to have been showing images of “scantily-clad women.”
Hellbound and Down 