There are a lot of users, mostly younger, who are trying to use the site to build a "following" but because of the way this site works the only path they see to that is to try forming a "safety" group whose purpose is essentially to spearhead mass-reporting campaigns (which the mods have specifically asked people not to do because it clogs the report queue).
This is a symptom of a much larger cultural problem where a solid chunk of the population has recreated the Satanic Panic of the 1980's. People see "predators" around every corner and hyper vigilance is creating a negative feedback loop that keeps a lot of people frightened over perceived threats and looking to cult-of-personality types to "protect" their communities, largely because those same people are the primary driver behind the messaging that has them convinced there is a problem in the first place. Realistically, the rate of sexual abuse is lower than ever and social media platforms have spent over a decade working out systems with authorities to prevent and catch predators.
This problem is going to continue until the larger cultural problem is meaningfully addressed and the cultural panic dies down.
On the upside, they give up pretty quickly. I don't think I've seen anyone really stick with that for more than like a week; when they don't see immediate results they get bored and go back to whatever social media site they were on before.
Also, at the risk of pissing some people off, it would be cool if the mods cared more about removing hate speech and bigoted conspiracies than letting ban-evading randos post slurs on the front page of the blogs section. In their pursuit of free speech absolutism, they're driving out the exact kind of diversity of thought and community building they seek to cultivate.
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