Got some nice word clouds in that article.
radiation from 5G networks, vaccines, reversal of the Earthās magnetic field, consumption of Doritos, and even chemtrails.
spiritual healing and attempts to discourage medical treatment, reinforcing the guilt of parents and caregivers.
anti-vaccine discourse, āthe new world order,ā scientific denialism, and anti-institutional ideology.
networks are organized, create meaning, fuel distrust, and capitalize on collective anguish
Can we just teach classes in ALL schools everywhere about rather things like this, what it is, what the cause is, and yeah, that telegram is full of shit
disinformation on Telegram soars
Honestly, you could probably leave it at that, because Telegram seems filled with disinformation no matter where you are.
This seriously sucks, though. Itās hard enough having people not understand autism, but to have this weaponized disinformation sucks worse.
They could have also left the media out. Iām sure misinformation is spread through all messenger apps.
Everybody agrees that disinformation is present in the relatively unregulated parts of the Internet and in crowds, but it would be hard to make people agree what is disinformation, outside of places like this with clear alignment.
Note how much fewer people agree that mass media are full of disinformation, that would be because mass media are man-made tools which give each their own kind of disinformation, a personalized poison. Same with social media.
My point was that where I live a significant part of population, including doctors, would consider the scientific idea of autism disinformation, and their own caveman bullshit not. This is similar to many other subjects and layers of existence.
So letās please think for a moment before just blaming Telegram, the parts to hate about it are its clunky UI, lack of proper E2EE encryption, misguiding advertising, need for a phone number and a protocol which seems an untrackable mess (compared to better ones, not to what I can devise, of course), judging by alternative usable clients being too few.
need for a phone number
I honestly think this is fine, hence why I use Signal. But the rest are not, hence why I use Signal.
Clunky UI? TG has been my favourite Android app for over a decade, it has amazing UI, not sure what youāre talking aboutā¦
On desktops. All Android UIs are clunky.
its not just telegram. i see misinformation all over the internet now. autism is ātrendingā. so you see memes, posts, jokes, articles that have very little actual information that can be discerned.
I still donāt really understand what the purpose is. Whoās getting rich off this information?
nobody. its just become popular to label yourself as autistic and blame everything on that.
iāve seen posts on social media with something like āomg my autism is goin brrrr hahaha.ā in relation to something that has nothing to do with being on the spectrum.
āIf you like video games, you might be autistic!ā and other such nonsense.
makes it rather difficult when people think its āhipā and will attach non-spectrum behavior to autism.
Itās the new āADHDā or āOCDā or whatever. People latch onto something thatās getting some amount of attention, twist it to somehow apply to themselves, and completely water down the whole thing, hurting the actual people who live with whatever the condition is since theyāre no longer the recipient of that attention.
I donāt get it. How could having autism or whatever be āhipā? Surely itās undesirable for most, because it tends to ostracize them, no?
I donāt get it. How could having autism or whatever be āhipā? Surely itās undesirable for most, because it tends to ostracize them, no?
At least as far as ive seen, people arenāt labelling them autistic to influence the way they are treated by the world- they are claiming the label because they see it as an explanation for previously unexplained anomalies in how the world treats them. Itās used as a flag to build community around those with shared experiences, not a doctorās note to get out of gym class.
I suppose, but it also highlights how little people actually seem to understand autism. Autism doesnāt ākick in,ā itās a description for how your interaction with the world differs from most people.
Being socially awkward isnāt autism, itās just being socially awkward, with a dash of social anxiety. Being really into a hobby isnāt autism, itās being really into a hobby. And so on. Yet people extrapolate something that looks vaguely similar to what they think autism is into being āon the spectrum,ā when really itās just a coincidence.
It just always felt weird to me.
Sad, disturbing and sadly not surprising. Iāve heard the same is happening on TikTok for a while and probably many other corners of the internet. Just as we gain a better understanding of the matter, some bad actors have to ruin it for everyone.
Idk if itās still going on but at least at some point, in some corner of the Tok, mental disorders were like little honor badges you could collect. People always showing off their stimming and whatever.
The worst one was always multiple personality disorder though. People referring to themselves as systems, having 100s of alters and getting new ones every now and then.
It sucks because it diminishes the realness of different disorders in peopleās heads.
ā¦ do you know how isolating it is being a neurodivergent person who stims? Do you know how many times Iāve had people awkwardly look at me or ask me to stop fidgeting with a pen or whatever, which paradoxically made me more overwhelmed and more want to stim? Iāve literally done it my entire life, and I never once even knew that it was a symptom of adhd. People just told me I was annoying. I had no retort to that. All I could was try my hardest to hyperanalyze everything I did.
Seeing people stimming on TikTok genuinely made me feel less isolated. No one doing so was doing it as a badge of honor. Itās cause stimming is an activity that is so shamed across society it is miserable. For many of us it becomes a cycle of shame and frustration trying to control it. Itās even worse if you have a tendency to vocal stim. I got in so much shit at school when I was a kid for just blurting something out when I felt overwhelmed or overstimulated. I had no idea there were other people out there struggling with the same things. I had no idea other people couldnāt help but fold a piece of paper when it was handed to them or click a pen so incessantly that it started to actually hurt their hands.
The people accusing others of stimming as some kind of social credit were always just shaming people for stimming. Thatās all it ever is. FakeDisorderCringe is a bullying subreddit dedicated entirely to shaming neurodivergent people and people with physical or mental disabilities. Itās just a bunch of people pointing at them and baseless speculating on whether or not someone else is suffering from something from their entirely uninformed perspective. You canāt tell if someone is neurodivergent from a video. They donāt gain anything from publicly identifying as such. It actually results in them being bullied and facing intense scrutiny.
Sorry, you probably did not intend this as a big statement it is just exhausting running into this opinion everywhere I look. Itās always women who are ādoing it for attentionā and you look in the comments and itās just hundreds of people shaming them for stimming. Usually a few comments about how she doesnāt ālook neurodivergentā. Especially if the person in question doesnāt have an official diagnosis yet, ignoring all of the biases and hurdles society places in front of people trying to get diagnosed.
My friend always tells me to āfind a non-vocal stimā and Iām just really not sure how to respond to that
I agree with pretty much everything you said.
One issue I have is that people absolutely do claim neurodivergence when theyāre not neurodivergent, much like how people claim to be LGBT without actually being LGBT. An unfortunately large subset of the population wants to belong to something, and the more niche that something is, the better, especially if it gets sympathy.
Iām not saying this is happening for stimming specifically, but Iāve seen a lot of people claim to be āon the spectrumā without actually being tested or even manifesting anything commonly understood to be a symptom. It cheapens what it means to be neurodivergent, and throws actual neurodivergent people even more into the spotlight. Many of those people arenāt autistic, theyāre just socially anxious, introverted, or something else that makes social interaction uncomfortable, and they use it as an excuse to plead for sympathy.
Acceptance is cool, appropriation is not. Unfortunately, calling people out on their BS often drags in innocent people who actually have the condition, so I always assume people are being truthful until proven otherwise. Itās dumb, and I wish people would stop it, but I think the existence of fakes largely leads to this issue.
I said this in another comment, but it is not possible to know who is and isnāt faking it. You canāt diagnose someone over the internet. You just canāt. A proper assessment is done in a clinical setting over a period of time. If we normalize questioning the diagnosis of others inevitably a sizable amount of people accused of faking it will genuinely be neurodivergent. Same goes with being queer. It benefits no one to allow others to decide if someone is gay or trans or not. All that it does is normalize the idea that itās acceptable or permissible for other people to decide who you are for you.
I resolutely oppose any efforts to label others as faking a disorder. Genuinely. I do not believe in the āwatering down the meaningā theory and believe that ableism/queerphobia comes explicitly from hatred and disgust, not from any experiences with real or fake neurodivergent/queer people. Far, far more harm is done by gatekeeping our community.
You remember that guy who pretended to be a trans woman a while ago? Like had socials and did this whole thing for months? If he came out as trans again today I have no reason not to accept him. So what if he is faking? If he exhibits predatory behavior then he should be excluded by those behaviors. I have no reason to question his identity though. It doesnāt benefit me or my community in any way to treat gender as anything other than what someone self identifies.
Much the same with neurodivergency. Unironically millions of neurodivergent people, predominantly women, have never gotten any help whatsoever for their neurodivergency because they have been systematically gatekept from getting a diagnosis by others who do not believe them. It benefits no one to normalize gatekeeping.
If we normalize questioning the diagnosis of others inevitably a sizable amount of people accused of faking it will genuinely be neurodivergent. Same goes with being queer.
100% agreed. A bit of tolerance goes a long way, and the downsides are minuscule.
My point is that it happens, not that we should do anything about it as a society. Hence my final paragraph:
Unfortunately, calling people out on their BS often drags in innocent people who actually have the condition, so I always assume people are being truthful until proven otherwise. Itās dumb, and I wish people would stop it, but I think the existence of fakes largely leads to this issue.
We shouldnāt just cover our eyes and plug our ears and pretend it doesnāt happen, but instead openly acknowledge it and demonstrate that itās not something worth trying to distinguish. Iām not saying you do this, but Iāve seen enough of it on Lemmy and elsewhere to feel like itās a big enough problem to call out.
Iām 99% sure Iām not neurodivergent, but Iāve never been tested and I definitely exhibit a lot of the behaviors that people who claim (w/o any testing or proof) to be neurodivergent exhibit. So I donāt consider myself neurodivergent, but I will occasionally suggest to people that what they call neurodivergence could instead be something else, like social anxiety or introversion. I donāt do it to minimize whatever condition they might have, but instead to try to point them in the right direction to hopefully get more appropriate help, should they see those behaviors as problematic. Iām also highly suspicious of a lot of the testing, since a lot of people expect a certain answer and will shop around until they get the diagnosis they want (also happens w/ medical conditions, not just psychological). But ultimately, whether they do or donāt fit a given group is largely irrelevant to me, so if they push back even slightly, Iāll shut up and accept it, because at the end of the day, acceptance tends to have better outcomes than actually solving whatever the problem is.
At the end of the day, a little love goes a long way. Love and accept those around you, and give the best (appropriate) support you can.
You expressed this very well. Fighting ableism irl is such a huge, daunting task, especially when fully masked. Know youāre not alone.
I feel for you and I believe you when you say it helps you to see youāre not alone. However there has been done a lot of observing by journalists and experts and it is largely agreed upon that the majority of information about autism on TikTok is sadly made up or heavily misrepresented.
Seeing other stim may be relieving but it doesnāt change the fact that itās a platform where attention is the currency, virtually no fact checking is done and new, disturbing trends make the rounds all the time as a result.
Please be open minded about it. Because even if what youāre seeing on there may be emotionally true for you, itās often played up or made up for attention.
The TikTok algorithm is also extremely aggressive in that it adapts very quickly to your preferences and creates closed environments. It is possible it simply doesnāt show you any of those problematic posts. Whenever thereās a critical article about the app, there are always users defending the platform and their users who genuinely think there is no issue because they canāt see any of it in their feed. The way you respond to certain topics is completely different to how the average user responds and the algorithm picks up those differences very efficiently. I am sure most users have no idea what the site looks like on average.
Now Iām curious how do the journalists get the data to speak authoritatively, does tiktok give them special access or smth
They investigate reports from users and talk to experts usually.
No, it isnāt often made up for attention. And the kind of attention directed towards neurodivergent people on social media is overwhelmingly negative. The exception tends to be from other neurodivergent people.
I am neurodivergent. My partner is neurodivergent. The majority of my friends are also neurodivergent. I am aware of what misinformation about neurodivergent people looks like, and it is categorically not coming from neurodivergent people on TikTok. It is coming from communities dedicated to questioning the diagnosis of others. It is coming from neurotypicals who feel the need to gatekeep neurodivergent people and shame them for being neurodivergent.
Not having an official diagnosis doesnāt mean that you arenāt neurodivergent. Ive been diagnosed since I was 4, but I had far fewer barriers to getting that diagnosis than many people do. Particularly, women and girls face gigantic barriers all the time to getting diagnosed.
No expert or journalist can assess whether someone has a disorder over a video. Thatās just a statement of fact. Only through performing actual tests and routinely speaking directly with and observing a patient in a controlled setting can you determine if someone meets the criteria for a diagnosis.
This phenomenon of accusing neurodivergent women and nonbinary people of faking it for attention exists in every social media, not just TikTok. TikTok is just the most prominent due largely to its accessibility. Making a TikTok is far less involved than making a YouTube video. It is in many respects easy for average people to create content for.
Ive seen the āproblematic postsā. Itās always a conventionally attractive woman or a nonbinary person showing themselves stimming or having a meltdown or talking about any of the ways that being neurodivergent impacts them. The comments questioning them are always all about āxyz isnāt neurodivergent thatās just normalā āthey probably make up a new diagnosis to go with every genderā āIām neurodivergent and I am inferior in every way and want to die, thereās no way anyone could ever be proud of being neurodivergent, this happy woman offends me by trying to say that she is neurodivergent tooā. Itās not scientific, itās not journalism, itās not medical. It is shaming people for being themselves. Thatās all.
Itās not your business to gatekeep someone elseās neurodivergent status. Itās not your business to determine whether someone elseās symptoms are valid or not. Itās just ableism. Thatās all it is.
Youāre focusing too much on one kind of video and one kind alone. An expert might not be able to tell if stimming is authentic but he can absolutely tell when someone spreads misinformation about Autism. That has been a huge issue on the platform and it does not matter what your experience has been with the app in this case for reasons that I have explained previously.
As is often the case with TikTok users you canāt see the forest for the trees when issues are addressed, Iām afraid.
You didnāt get into addressing any of the other things I said. Iām not into repeating myself over and over. Iād encourage you to read the rest of what I said, I addressed the things youāve said here as well.
Do you make videos like ālook I have a cool new stimā or record repeatedly hitting people only to claim itās a stim when they react?
If not, youāre probably not the target of my statement re: stims
Why would it be a problem for me to make a video saying ālook I have a cool new stimā? Is stimming only permissible if I suffer socially for it? Is it a problem to celebrate stimming itself as something positive and good that helps me regulate my anxiety? I didnāt even know those little pop-it toys existed until like a year ago. I would never have known without TikTok and I now use them all the time.
As for the hitting people, Iām not sure what you mean by that. Iāve never even heard of that accusation before, and itās certainly not what people mean when they talk about people āpretending to have adhd/autism for attentionā. Iāve been in these communities before I know who theyāre accusing of faking it. Itās largely women who are conventionally attractive who ādont look autistic at allā and non-binary people who āare crazy and make stuff up all the time for attentionā.
Any good groups in Telegram?
