We have to stop expecting teachers to singlehandedly stop the manosphere

It would be reassuring to believe this is a niche corner of the internet designed to provoke outrage and rack up clicks. But teachers across the country are already dealing with the spillover in real time. New NEU research shows 70% of teachers frequently see pupils’ behaviour, attitudes or language influenced by extreme or harmful online content – and almost nine in ten say social media platforms play a major role in exposing pupils to it. In classrooms, that looks like sexist language being normalised, female staff being ignored, and boys repeating the same lines about “high value” men and “traditional” women as if they were common sense. 

The reason this content spreads isn’t mysterious. The manosphere thrives in an algorithm-driven environment where the loudest and most extreme voices are rewarded. A teenager doesn’t need to search for misogyny to be served it.  

We saw this first-hand in the Big Tech’s Little Victims campaign’s Algorithm Experiment. We set up brand-new accounts in the names of four fictional 13-year-olds, then used TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and Instagram to scroll for up to 30 minutes a day across a week to see what they would be served by the algorithm. What came back was shocking, but not surprising.  

On average, the accounts were shown to be harmful or age-inappropriate content, within just three minutes of logging on. And for every minute spent scrolling, they were served one piece of concerning content. In some sessions, the very first videos were extreme. But it wasn’t just the volume of content that shocked us, it was the normalisation of extreme views designed to divide and incite hatred. The boys’ accounts were served content that encouraged isolation, told them to distrust women and that men and woman can never be just friends. The girls’ feeds were littered with material promoting self-harm and encouraging subservience. All of this was shown to accounts that clearly stated the user was 13 years old. 

The rise of misogyny we are seeing is not a failure of individual parents or educators. It is a predictable outcome of systems designed to monetise attention and profit from harm. Of course, education has a vital role to play. Schools can help young people to develop the language to talk about consent, equality and respect. We can teach how to spot manipulation, coercion and the way online influencers profit from insecurity. Addressing violence against women and girls requires a whole-society approach. But we have to be realistic, schools cannot outpace the algorithm that will exploit children far beyond the school gates.  

We also cannot rely on big platforms to regulate themselves. Their interests are financial, and outrage is profitable. Even when companies promise to change, it tends to be slow, partial and easy to reverse – and it comes only after harm has already been done. If your business model depends on pulling young people into endless scrolls, you have little incentive to make that experience meaningfully safer. 

That is why we must raise the age of social media access to 16. Other countries have already taken action – Australia has legislated to stop under-16s from having accounts and other European countries are also following suit. Age limits that exist only on paper are not enough. We also need robust enforcement and real penalties for companies that profit from breaking the rules, not fines that will be deemed a cost of doing business. 

Some will argue that banning under-16s from social media is too blunt, or that children will find a way around it. But we do not allow our children to buy alcohol just because some will find ways around the age limit. The point is to set a clear boundary, reduce exposure at a vulnerable age, and force the industry to design children’s safety rather than for addiction and anger. 

Theroux’s documentary is a timely warning. The manosphere is not an isolated online fad. It is a pipeline of misogyny amplified by algorithms and delivered into children’s pockets at scale. Teachers will continue to challenge sexism and build respectful cultures in schools. But if we want those lessons to stick, we must stop flooding children’s lives with content that teaches the opposite. The government must act and ban social media for under-16s.

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Daniel Kebede is the General Secretary of the National Education Union.

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