Academics warn the online 'manosphere' must be tackled as a public health problem like smoking and obesity

A report published in The Lancet describes the manosphere as a sprawling commercial ecosystem of online communities that promotes misogyny and male victimhood, causes measurable public health harms, and requires a coordinated government response on the scale of anti-tobacco campaigns. The authors argue that boys and young men are having their insecurities deliberately cultivated and then monetised by content creators and platforms.

The manosphere is characterised in the report as a "diffuse commercial ecosystem" where outrage and grievance are "good for business".

The authors caution that efforts to regulate such content are routinely portrayed as assaults on men's freedoms, a framing that deliberately narrows the political space for intervention.

Prof Kent Buse, a co-author, warns that platforms will deploy "the playbook that served tobacco so well: blame the individual, and call regulation an attack."