might also x-post to !feminism@beehaw.org
EDIT:
A few days ago I saw an Instagram reel of a young woman talking about how she had been raped six years ago, struggled with thoughts of suicide afterwards, but managed to rebuild her life again. Among the comments – the majority of which were from men – were things like “Well at least you had some”, “No way, she’s unrapeable”, “Hope you didn’t talk this much when it happened”, “Bro could have picked a better option.” Reading those comments, which had thousands of likes and many boys agreeing with them, made me feel sick.
I know when someone claims to experience harm from something that's not automatic justification for us to care about that harm or to think their experience of that harm is reasonable, but I don't think people realize how these comments constitute a legitimate and severe harm to people - not just for promoting a kind of "rape culture", but I mean the harm victims experience when they encounter this stuff online.
Given how many of us have been sexually assaulted and harassed, the combination of the violence and comments like this in support for that violence amounts to a kind of "terrorism". I could talk more about the PTSD that can develop and the way people underestimate how awful PTSD triggers are, etc. but it's almost pointless for people who don't already have a traumatic history and have some amount of first-hand experience to draw from.
Regardless, I think the immediate solution for victims is to abandon social media - do not use Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, etc., and to instead participate in and cultivate online communities that take seriously the need to protect users from these kinds of harms.
Lemmy is broadly not a safe space for women (it feels actively misogynistic), but I would like to see some lemmy sub-communities, e.g. instances like Blahaj, develop and apply moderation policies to protect women and victims of assault, etc.
There is a lot to work out there, but it seems like a potential starting point.