Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash
Moderating Self-hate
How social media falls short in protecting us from ourselves.
2024-03-27T14:44-07:00
Money’s tight these days, and my constant quest for a good side hustle led me to an interesting job opportunity. It was a flexible gig for independent contractors to train artificial intelligence, asking humans to find nuances in posts, text, and even code that machines might miss.
One of the interview’s media questions had me thinking deeply about what constitutes hate online. The post showed a single blurry frame from a four-second video of a teenager modeling her prom dress. The image was innocuous, just a girl in a nice gown posing in front of the mirror, yet the caption was painful to read. The gist of it was: “I don’t look good, I made a mistake here, I’m not pretty.”
I had to think for a while if artificial intelligence should label this post as anything hateful. It wasn’t bashing a presidential candidate with vitriolic epithets or lashing out at other groups, but there was still something sinister here. The longer I pondered, the surer I felt that there was reason for concern.
Self-hate is hate, and whether harmful speech is directed at others or ourselves, someone still gets hurt. I didn’t think this young woman was suicidal or otherwise in any imminent danger. Maybe she was actually fishing for compliments, but either way her words reflect a painful reality of modern online culture: however good people look, many think they never look good enough. It’s not always some insidious other that we think is inherently bad – it’s often us as well.
Social media platforms have grown more effective in combatting hate speech, although the sad truth is that some still prioritize certain groups over others. A popular meme now circulating shows someone conducting an experiment on X, writing that they “hate cis people.” There’s a warning underneath the post saying it’s hidden due to hateful content. Right below that warning sits a string of other posts: “I hate gay people”, “I hate trans people”, “I hate Black people.” None of these are flagged as inappropriate. If the image is indeed a real screenshot then clearly there’s more work to be done on that platform.
Should that important task include policing self-hate? Is it social media’s job to protect us from ourselves? I think so, to some degree, and I wanted to see if this protection already exists. A quick Google search of the issue revealed something even more concerning: self-deprecation isn’t just a threat to our collective mental health that’s lurking in the shadows – it’s a full-blown trend. Whether younger generations are doing this for humor or consolation, they are aware of what they’re doing.
If it’s this prevalent then it must not be automatically blocked, but I decided to test it for myself. I picked up my phone, opened up X and composed a new post: “I hate myself.” Short, sweet, and brutal. And then I waited.
Nothing happened. No flags, no bans, no alerts from the platform. My message of self-loathing just sat there as if I was writing about the weather. It’s worth noting again that this was on X, a platform I’ve already mentioned as possibly having a slew of moderation problems. I also have a meager following, so maybe if my words were read by someone who was genuinely concerned, they’d report it.
Perhaps moderating self-hate at this point is our collective burden instead of any platform’s. If big tech can’t always automatically protect us from hating others or ourselves, then the job falls on our community. Standing up against injustice is always important, even when that injustice is directed from one party unto themselves.
I’d rather be lifted up with loving human hands than the cold gatekeeping arms of social media, yet I also wouldn’t mind if social media tried a bit harder to keep us safe.
And to the girl in the prom dress: despite what you think, you look amazing.