In 2025, new questions were included in the survey asking the respondents if they had encountered content online in the previous three months (including messages, comments, photos, memes, videos, etc.) that they considered to be hostile or degrading towards groups of people or individuals, such as in blogs, vlogs, on social media or news sites including in comment sections.
Note: The data presented in this release relates to individuals aged 16 years and over who used the internet in the three months prior to completing the survey.
Similar numbers (63%) of males and females had seen content online that they considered to be hostile or degrading towards groups of people or individuals.
Younger females aged 16 to 29 years were most likely to have encountered such content at 84% compared with 27% of older females aged 75 or over and 72% of males in the 16 to 29 age category.
Of those who had seen hostile/degrading content online, the main reason identified was political or social views (78%), followed closely by targeting because of their or others racial or ethnic origin (77%).
Nearly six in ten (56%) felt that the reason for the targeting of such hostile or degrading online content was because of their own or others sexual and/or gender identity.
Amongst younger people aged 16 to 29, the most common reasons identified by females who encountered online targeting were race (91%) and sex (82%), while for young males the most common reasons identified were political or social views (95%) and race or ethnic origin (82%).
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