Pew Research Suggest Online Harassment Is More Prevalent Than We May Think

Amid growing concerns over trolls and online harassment, Pew Research Center has released a released new research that concludes that nearly three-quarter s of online adults have witnessed the phenomenon and 40 percent have been victims themselves.  While the results may be unsurprising, they put hard numbers on the dark underbelly of an experience that many people fear will limit the potential of social media.

The respected polling institute found that a sizable portion of harassment cases occur in the social sphere, with two thirds of the roughly 2,800 respondents reporting that their most recent incident occurred on a social networking site. About one-quarter said they had been harassed in the comments section of a blog or news sites and 16 percent said they’ve most recently encountered abuse in an online game.

Pew reported that online harassment tends to split into two overlapping but distinct categories. The most common is insults and name-calling, which was witnessed by 60 percent of respondents. Half recalled witnessing efforts to purposely embarrass someone, while 27 percent admitted they have been on the receiving end of abuse.

The second category involves more severe forms of harassment that may cross the line into criminal behavior, such as physical threats and stalking. Nearly one-quarter of participants have witnessed someone being abused online for a sustained period of time and near one-third said they’ve fallen victim what Pew defines as “severe harassment.”

Members of that latter group typically respond more seriously to their harassers than others, according to the research center, often taking steps such as deleting their profiles, confronting the person responsible and reporting abusers to the service in which the interaction took place. Those who experienced more moderate forms of harassment tended to settle for simpler actions like ignoring their abuser.

Fewer than one in five people who have only been called names or embarrassed online said the incident was highly upsetting while one-third of those who suffered severe abuse felt that way.

The Pew report comes as U.K. legislators are considering a bill that could impose prison terms of up to two years for online abuse and some groups are calling for similar laws on U.S. shores.