Whenever I see a sponsored post pop up in the newsfeed of the only social network I still check from time to time – a post by some local political extremist or a party that denies climate change, believes itself smarter than every doctor and scientist, spreads lies about people being poisoned or preaches the collapse of civilization – I laugh for a moment. I know they’ve wasted a few euros of some “culture war” budget on me, thrown straight into the void. But that’s a weak consolation. The digital seeds of hatred and fear they so diligently sow, supported by sympathetic algorithms, fall on fertile ground, especially among young people. And particularly among young men.

Last week, Politico revealed how this manifests in real life by publishing a private online conversation among leaders of the Republican Party youth wing. Across more than 2,900 pages of messages, these new-generation politicians compared people of darker skin to monkeys, fantasized about sending their political opponents to gas chambers, dreamed of raping their enemies, discussed how to drive them to suicide, and praised Hitler and Republicans whom they believe supported slavery. Representatives across the political spectrum – including Republicans – immediately distanced themselves from these statements, although Vice President Vance tried to minimize the issue, claiming that these were “just young people, and kids do stupid things.” But these “kids” are not kids. They are young men between the ages of 24 and 35.

Hate-filled content circulating online does not, of course, automatically shape the opinions of these young men, but the flood of racist, sexist, homophobic and similar messages that young people now grow up with unquestionably contributes to their worldview. A study published last year by the Center for Violence Prevention Research at the University of Dublin demonstrated the brutal efficiency of algorithms in spreading misogyny and ideologies of male supremacy. Researchers created blank profiles, indicating only that the user was a young man. They then tracked the content recommended by social networks. The result was clear and alarming: in less than thirty minutes, all profiles were flooded with content from the manosphere – from antifeminism and “alpha male” theories to fearmongering about “LGBT+ ideology,” the glorification of violence, and extremist messages about women’s subordination. These materials appeared without any active search. For the algorithms, the mere assumption that someone was male was enough to serve them this toxic ideological package. After three hours of watching, it turned out that 75% of all content was openly toxic. Social networks offer young men a world in which equality itself is the problem.

A particularly insidious part of this propaganda machinery revolves around messages about motivation, money, and men’s mental health – themes that seem legitimate but are saturated with hate. What begins as a simple motivational post about masculinity quickly becomes the claim that women are manipulative and feminism destroys the family. Influencers – among them Andrew Tate, whose name appeared 580 times in the experiment – season such messages with talk about self-discipline, success, and wealth, making them a strong lure for young people seeking structure in a chaotic world.

The content circulating in the manosphere rests on three pillars: narratives of a masculinity crisis, pseudoscientific theories of sex and gender, and motivational advice on how to get rich and “win” women. The first casts men as victims of feminism and liberal society that supposedly destroyed the traditional family, erased masculinity, and elevated the rights of women and LGBT+ people at men’s expense. The second uses pseudoscientific language to justify fixed, biologically determined gender roles, reducing women to sexual beings over whom men must dominate and exert control. Patriarchal order is presented as the “natural” model of human relations. The third pillar emphasizes personal responsibility: if you are poor, depressed, or lonely – it’s your own fault. Yet the manosphere immediately offers the solution: security is achieved through financial and physical self-discipline, emotional suppression, and dominance over women. These are the messages absorbed by teenagers who spend hours and hours online, searching for belonging, identity, meaning. Day after day, algorithms serve them content that feeds, normalizes, and entrenches a worldview steeped in hate, until the world itself begins to appear that way: dangerous, corrupted, and lost – especially for men.

In 2004, Morgan Spurlock released the acclaimed documentary Super Size Me, in which he eats only McDonald’s food for a month. We are not surprised by the outcome: he gained almost 15 kilograms, began experiencing psychological problems, lost libido, and his liver started failing. The way Spurlock fed his body is the way young people today feed their brains. Hours spent on social media are equivalent to constant bingeing on fast food – only here the damage is visible in their minds: they are poisoned by hatred.

Algorithms have no conscience and no sense of responsibility. They recognize only efficiency. Empathy, doubt, respect, dialogue, solidarity – these are values that do not sell well in our time. And if we surrender completely to technologies driven by profit, we will end up in a world where people know how to click – but not how to think. This is why the greatest hope right now comes from the students in Serbia who have been protesting in the streets for almost a year, demanding political accountability. They prove that young people still know how to think – and how to act.

The author is a Slovenian sociologist and professor at the University of Ljubljana.

Delo, October 21, 2025.