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Table Talk: Family Conversations about Current Events
How much time do you think people spend online each day?
People are spending a lot of time online lately. On average, people spend 6.5 hours on the internet every day, according to the Global Web Index. Teenagers and young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 spend an additional 2.5 hours more time online than those between the ages of 55 and 64. As they spend time online, many people experience online hate and harassment, which can cause stress, fear and harm, especially to those who are members of marginalized identity groups.
Because of the time spent online, the online hate and harassment that people face and witness can intrude upon and fundamentally affect their daily lives.
What is Online Hate and Harassment?
Online hate refers to abuse and harassment that targets someone based on their identity, specifically as part of a marginalized identity group.
Online harassment can include many types of unwanted or hostile contact on digital platforms–including social media, chat, and email. These behaviors include verbal abuse, hate speech, trolling, spamming, impersonation, and defamation.
More severe forms of online harassment include ongoing harassment campaigns, sexual harassment, stalking (willfully and repeatedly following or harassing another person in circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to fear injury or death especially because of express or implied threats), doxing (having someone release private information about them without permission), and swatting (having an emergency service dispatched to their house as a hoax).
Results of the 2024 Online Hate and Harassment Survey
Every year, ADL conducts a survey about online hate and harassment, where people in the U.S. are asked whether they’ve experienced any of the following behaviors or actions on social media: called offensive names; had someone try to embarrass them on purpose; physically threatened; been harassed for a continuous period of time; stalked; sexually harassed; doxed or swatted.
Here are some of the key results for adults from the 2024 annual survey.
Severe harassment increased. In this survey, severe harassment includes physical threats, sustained harassment, stalking, sexual harassment, doxing, and swatting. Twenty-two percent of people surveyed experienced severe harassment on social media in the past 12 months, an increase from 18% in 2023 (including an increase in physical threats from 7% to 10%).
LGBTQ+ people were the most harassed of all the marginalized groups surveyed: LGBTQ+ people experienced increases in physical threats (from 6% to 14%) and transgender people, as a subgroup, reported severe harassment to a higher degree from last year (from 30% to 45%).
People with disabilities were more likely to be harassed than non-disabled people, 45% compared to 36% respectively for any harassment and 31% vs. 19% for severe harassment. There was also an increase that people with disabilities faced from the previous year 45% compared to 35% for any harassment and 31% vs. 20% for severe harassment.
Jewish adults were more likely to be harassed for their religion (34% of those harassed compared to 18% of people who are not Jewish) and 41% changed their online behavior to avoid being recognized as Jewish. Nearly two-thirds (63%) perceived themselves generally as being less safe compared to last year.
Facebook remains the most common platform where harassment was experienced at 61% harassment, while the incidence of harassment rose on WhatsApp (from 14% to 25%) and Telegram (from 7% to 13%).
Here are some of the key results for teenagers ages 13-17 from the 2024 survey.
Overall, online harassment remained consistent from the year before, with half (50%) of teens experiencing any harassment in the past 12 months.
Almost six in ten (59%) teens worried about being harassed, threatened or targeted online in the future.
Thirty-six percent of teens reported that online harassment led to off-line/in person harassment and 26% reported that information available about them online has led to them being harassed off-line or in person.
Many teens were exposed to hate and disinformation, most often election disinformation 37%) and anti-LGBTQ+ disinformation (31%).
Over three-quarters (76%) of teens agreed or strongly agreed that content that expresses hate based on identity should be banned, up from 68% in 2023. Nearly four out of five (79%) agreed or strongly agreed that platforms should ban content that encourages violence against a person or group because of their identity, an increase from the previous year.
If you want to learn more about the survey and results, see Online Hate and Harassment: The American Experience 2024.
Survey Recommendations
The report also includes several recommendations to make a difference in holding technology companies accountable, providing recourse for targets and preparing for the new challenges that AI (artificial intelligence) poses. Here are a few of their recommendation (see the report to read the full list of recommendations):
Messaging platforms should strengthen anti-hate policies and invest in tools to combat hate and harassment.
Platforms should implement recommended reporting tools and features that reduce hate and improve abuse reporting.
Tech companies should enact strong policies against hate and harassment and enforce them transparently, equitably, and at scale.
Congress should build on state efforts to rein in the perpetrators of doxing and swatting.
Policymakers must consider hate and harassment as human-driven, structural inputs in how our data systems are built and operated when considering regulations to keep up with new tech, including AI and chatbots.
Policymakers should devote time and resources to fighting hate online and funding research to further understand the problem of online hate.
Engage in the Conversation
Age
12 and up
Questions to Start the Conversation
In your own words, how would you describe online hate and harassment?
What did you learn that you didn’t know before?
What information or statistic surprised you the most? What information or statistic did you find not surprising at all?
What information or statistic do you find concerning?
Have you ever seen, experienced or heard about online hate and harassment? What happened? How did you feel?
Questions to Dig Deeper
(See the Related Content for more information.)
Why do you think the sub-title of the report is called “The American Experience?” What does that mean to you?
What are your thoughts about the report’s recommendations? What recommendation do you find most relevant or important?
What other ideas or recommendations do you have to address and reduce online hate and harassment?
Ideas for Taking Action
Ask: What can we do to help? What individual and group actions can help make a difference?
Hold a school or community forum on online hate and harassment to help students and the whole school community understand what online hate and harassment are and how it can be addressed in their community.
On an individual level, commit to doing more to not participate in online hate and harassment and actively address it when it happens, if it’s safe to do so. Encourage friends, peers and family members to do the same.
Review the recommendations in the report and make a plan to reach out to social media platforms or government officials to encourage them to pursue one or more of the recommendations.