News Trapped by the ‘incel’ algorithm in Mexico: ‘I thought I would always live miserably’

[Oneitiscel]

Trapped by the ‘incel’ algorithm in Mexico: ‘I thought I would always live miserably’

EL PAÍS spoke with young people immersed in a community that navigates a digital universe marked by hate speech and threats that operates unchecked

english.elpais.com

William believed his life was a failure when he was just 16. It was 2021, and he was going through a personal crisis, comparing himself to other people. “I’d never had a girlfriend, and my classmates made fun of me for being a virgin,” he confesses. He felt like everyone had failed him. He went online looking for answers, and the algorithm guided him into incel forums, a digital universe filled with hate speech and threats that operates unchecked. Something similar happened to Javier, who fell into these blogs during the pandemic. He wanted to take advantage of the lockdown to get in shape by looking for exercise routines, but other suggestions popped up instead. “Little by little, without realizing it, incel content appeared,” he confesses.

EL PAÍS spoke with three young incels who described the frustration and loneliness that led two of them to consider committing violent acts.

Hopelessness kept William, 20, hooked on forums where misogyny flourishes. For him, those places proved liberating. “Finally, I could listen to realities that had been worrying me and making me feel insecure without fear of retaliation,” he says. He saw how the Facebook groups he belonged to grew from 4,000 members to tens of thousands in just a couple of years. His thinking has changed today: “I’m pretty good. I have a girlfriend, I’m studying for a degree, I go to parties, something I never did before I was 17,” he says.


Javier identifies as a young man frustrated by his inability to make romantic connections. He describes entering that world as “a black hole” into which it’s easy to fall when someone feels rejected. He explains that behind the discipline and hegemonic masculinity there lies an extremist ideology. “It’s easy for misogynistic messages to appear there: ‘They’re all whores, all acting out of self-interest.’ No one gives you a ‘welcome to the club’ badge. You just log into channels and suddenly certain terms appear. When I see violent acts related to this issue, I think: ‘Wow, I’m into this.’ It’s hard for me to imagine having anything in common with someone who commits an atrocity,” he admits.

William encountered one such label, the Black Pill, a movement that promotes the idea that sexual success depends solely on genetics. “They tell you that you’re not attractive and won’t be attractive even with surgery, because there are irremediable issues like height [...] I could say ‘it’s not all my fault,’ but that led to despair. It evolves in a very bad way. I thought I would always live a miserable life,” he confesses.

This was the stage in which he became more radicalized and considered attacking others and publicly taking his own life. He discussed these ideas on Facebook. He explains that violent attacks are not “openly” promoted in the groups on that social network to avoid being blocked or investigated, but the sanctions are easy to avoid. “You can create groups with a specific subject and control who enters and leaves. The rules are a facade: administrators discuss and even glorify those who have committed something [violent],” he points out.

Luis, like William, claims he was close to committing a fatal act. This 20-year-old from the State of Mexico reached that point because of the helplessness he felt. “The people who mistreated me weren’t going to pay if I didn’t do something. They stole my self-confidence, my self-esteem,” he says. The young man, who is also part of a Facebook group, looked up to one of the members. “His ideology, so to speak, was to give up and turn his back on the world,” he notes. However, he asserts that not all cases reach that extreme. “I’ve heard [that we were linked to] terrorism. But not all. We are sad men, whether due to bullying, harassment, or a negative environment. We don’t have the best self-esteem,” he explains.

The stories of the young people covered in this story all agree that the algorithm led them to the forums through searches for exercise routines or questions about their bodies and relationships with others. Pérez explains how relentless this algorithm is: “The platforms’ business is attention, keeping you trapped. An angry teenager who asks what false accusations are will automatically be directed to incel and far-right groups.” Bezanilla denounces the lack of greater oversight: “The platforms must assume some responsibility, without hiding behind the debate on freedom of speech.”

In the United States and Europe, the movement’s echo has been heard more strongly, but it has already crossed more borders.

William has let go of the rope that tied him to that digital universe. But not entirely. “I haven’t distanced myself; I relapse and continue to visit these places frequently, whether out of curiosity or because I’m nostalgic,” he admits.

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There are children in the streets of tacoland who are literally abducted to have their organs harvested without their consent....

Cartels that control every aspect of government and bribe LE into not pursuing their crimes....

And drug enterprises that pump billions of dollars worth of substances into other countries, killing hundreds of thousands of burgerland citizens every single year...

And this is what mass media is all worked up about?!?!

One edgy faggot teen decided to go ER, and all of a sudden, there is a nationwide epidemic of "le evil inkwells" looking to cause harm on a mass scale akin to the aforementioned problems?

Someone has been smoking some good shenanigans....

Nonsense!

 

[nazianime]

That explains why there was a surge of taconiggers around the forum.

The truth is because incel ideology transcends race, economic status (unless you are top 10% wealth), nationality that is what makes it dangerous. But at the same time very few are usually jaded enough to go do anything.

 

[Wizardmaxxer]

the "wah wah incels are le bad" has come into third world

 

[Pikacel]

I like how these articles read

>Jose was brutally outcasted and tormented his whole life by his peers, pushing him into suicidal ideation
>THEN THE WICKED DEMONIC INCEL BLACKPILL SPACES offered him a place to vent without fear of backlash AND KEPT HIM HOOKED IN AND RADICALISED UNTIL he moved on (because foids finally gave him sex and normies stopped ostracising him)