The percentage of women who have experienced sexual harassment online has doubled since 2017

The percentage of women who say they have experienced sexual harassment online has doubled since 2017. Women are three times more likely than men to report experiencing sexual harassment online (16% compared to 5%), and women are minors 35 years are also three times. as likely as their male counterparts to report experiencing sexual harassment (33% versus 11%). Meanwhile, men are generally more likely than women to say they have experienced forms of bullying online, and are more likely to report being called by an offensive name and physically threatening them, the study found. What’s more, about half of the people who have experienced online abuse are more likely to cite politics as the reason they believe they were attacked. In fact, 20% of all respondents reported being harassed by political opinions, up from 14% three years earlier. “Partisan antipathy has been growing for years,” said Emily Vogels, a Pew Research Center associate researcher who led the new report, in a question and answer session. “Americans increasingly say that they find they have less in common politically with people they disagree with, and view political discussions online as less respectful, less civil, and more angry than political discussions elsewhere.” . Among those who had experienced bullying online, male and white respondents were especially likely to cite political views as the reason they were targeted. “While there are some partisan differences in citing political views as the perceived catalyst for tackling bullying, these differences do not hold when race and ethnicity are taken into account,” the report adds. For example, he said, white Democrats and Republicans who report being harassed “are just as likely to say that their political views were the reason they were harassed.” Politics was not the only perceived motivator. Other reasons cited for the targets of online bullying included your gender (33%), race or ethnicity (29%), religion (19%), and sexual orientation (16%), all of which marked increases from a survey of Pew 2017. Gay, lesbian and bisexual respondents were “particularly prone to online bullying,” according to the survey.

The report analyzed the results of a nationally representative survey of more than 10,000 American adults from Sept. 8-13. Researchers considered respondents who said they had experienced offensive name calling, sexual harassment, intentional embarrassment, stalking, physical threats, and / or harassment over an extended period of time online to be targets of online harassment. Women who were harassed online were much more likely than men to say they had been harassed because of their gender, and bullied whites who were black or Hispanic were much more likely than whites to say they had been harassed because of their gender. race or ethnicity. . Across age lines, the majority of younger adults ages 18-29 (64%) and nearly half of adults ages 30-49 say they have been bullied online, compared to 30% of those aged 50 to 64 and 21% of those aged 65. and up. In total, 41% of Americans say they experienced some form of bullying online, just like in 2017, and three out of four targets say their most recent incident happened on social media. More and more adults report experiencing “more serious” types of online bullying, such as stalking, sexual harassment, and physical threats (25% now, compared to 15% in 2014), as well as multiple bullying behaviors (28% now versus 16% in 2014). Only 18% of those surveyed thought that social media companies were doing a good or excellent job of addressing cyberbullying and bullying online. Many have differing views on how the issue should be tackled – for example, about half of those surveyed said permanent bans for offenders would be very effective in suppressing harassment, and 48% said the same about getting users to disclose their real identities. Meanwhile, only one in three people believe that victims of cyberbullying or online stalking should be able to sue the platforms where the crime was committed.