Strangers to blame for half of online hate cases, study finds
Women were twice as likely to receive online hate targeting their gender.
A total of 45% of adults have experienced online hate at least once in their lives, and in half of those cases the abuse came from a stranger, research has found.
Women were twice as likely to receive online hate targeting their gender, and sexual minorities, Muslims, and people with a disability experienced significantly more online hate, according to the research. Younger people also experienced higher levels of online abuse
'Understanding Adult Experiences of Online Hate in Ireland — An Exploratory Survey', was carried out by Dr Maja Brandt Andreasen and Dr Darragh McCashin of the DCU Anti-Bullying Centre and surveyed 1,008 adults in Ireland aged 18-82.
It found that 45% of respondents had experienced online hate at some point because of their personal identity or beliefs, such as race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, religion, age, or disability.
"Of those who experienced online hate, almost 50% identified a stranger as the source of this," it said.
However, less than half of the respondents took action, primarily because they did not feel it was serious enough (37%), did not know what to do (34%), or did not think that anything would change if they did (31%).
"Of those who took action, most spoke to family and friends, reported it to the website or social media company, or blocked the account," it said.
"Few contacted the authorities — 18% contacted An Garda Síochána and only 7% reported it to Hotline.ie.”
While 10% of all respondents said they had experienced online hate ‘many times’, for young people the figure was 18%, for people with a disability it was 16%, and for ethnic minorities it was 17%.
Regarding online hate, the report said: "71% of 18-24 year-olds have experienced this at least once. Of particular note is the fact that 55% of 18-24 year-olds have received this a few times or many times in their adult lives.”
As to where the abuse originated, 43% pointed to Facebook, followed by Instagram (22%), Snapchat (21%), and Instant messaging apps (18%).
However, those aged 18-24 identified Snapchat (34%), Instagram (31%), and gaming platforms (29%) as more prevalent platforms for receiving hateful communication than Facebook (23%).
"The most common perceived motivation factor was fun/amusement (42%), followed by 33% who believed the person(s) did this to embarrass or shame them, and 32% who believed the motivation was to harass them,” it said.
Three-quarters of respondents backed the introduction of further legislation to prevent online hate and almost 80% said social media companies should do more to stop the spread of online hate.
One of the authors of the research, Dr Darragh McCashin, said when it came to strangers abusing people online, it could be a mix of people with verified identities or those with anonymous user profiles.
He said it was notable that women were more likely to receive abuse based on gender and that research would continue to see whether it was possible to predict overall risk factors when it came to online abuse.
He also remarked on the attitudes of younger people who were less likely to back calls for legislation or for more action by social media companies to address online hate.
“Those aged 18-25 are disproportionately more likely to experience a high frequency of abuse but the attitudes of younger cohorts in how society addresses the issue, I was surprised,” he said. “Believing that social media companies should do more, specific legislation - a lot of younger people were less likely [to support that] which is kind of unusual.”
Commenting on the level of abuse experienced by other groups, such as those with a disability, he said: "There could be more creative mechanisms to see how we capture that.”
The study did find changes in the types of internet usage between the various age groups. Most use email but fewer younger people did so and just 42% of all respondents used Twitter, compared to 63% who used Instagram and 74% on Facebook.
"A significant jump appears from 47% usage of Facebook among 18–24-year-olds to 79% among 25-34-year-olds with the 45– 54-year-olds being the group which uses the platform the most (83%),” it said.
Just under half of the respondents had never witnessed any online hateful communication against someone else (46%).
Of the 1,008 respondents 29% were aged 25 to 44. Half the respondents were women and 78% of the sample were heterosexual, while 87% were white and predominantly Irish.
The report can be viewed here.
