Online Hate and Harassment: The American Experience 2024

Executive Summary

Severe online hate and harassment increased four points across the board in the past year, which was dominated by an unprecedented surge in antisemitism online and offline in the wake of Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on October 7. Decreases in platform enforcement and data access and new threats of hate and disinformation from generative AI tools all potentially contributed to this year’s findings.

ADL conducts this nationally representative survey annually to find out how many American adults experience hate or harassment on social media. Since 2022, we have also surveyed teens ages 13-17. This survey was conducted in February and March 2024 and asked about the preceding 12 months. 

Key Findings

• Severe harassment overall went up: 22% of Americans experienced severe harassment¹ on social media in the past 12 months, an increase from 18% in 2023 (including an increase in physical threats from 7% to 10%).
• Harassment by disability: 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.
• People with disabilities were more likely to be harassed than in the year before, 45% compared to 35% for any harassment and 31% vs. 20% for severe harassment
• Harassment for disability spiked: Reasons for online harassment in the past 12 months remained stable, except for disability, which spiked from 4% to 12%, despite the proportion of disabled respondents remaining similar.
• LGBTQ+ people were the most harassed of the marginalized groups surveyed: LGBTQ+ people experienced increases in physical threats (from 6% to 14%), while transgender people, as a subgroup, reported severe harassment to a higher degree from last year (from 30% to 45%).
• Jewish adults were more likely to be harassed for their religion (34% of those harassed compared to 18% of non-Jews) and 41% changed their online behavior to avoid being recognized as Jewish. Nearly two-thirds (63%) felt less safe than they did last year.
• Platforms: Facebook remains the most common platform where harassment was experienced at 61% of harassment, while the incidence of harassment rose on WhatsApp (from 14% to 25%) and Telegram (from 7% to 13%).

Key Recommendations

Allow researchers inside the black box: The federal government should broaden data access for researchers and follow California’s lead and require technology companies to standardize transparency reporting and broaden data access.

Address hate on messaging apps: Messaging platforms should strengthen anti-hate policies and invest in tools to combat hate and harassment.

Support targets of hate: Platforms should implement recommended reporting tools and features that reduce hate and improve abuse reporting.

Invest in trust and safety: Tech companies should increase trust and safety resources (human and automated) to ensure platforms are enforcing their rules around hate speech and violence.

Year in Review

Rising Antisemitism, Israel/Gaza, and Generative AI 

The landscape of online antisemitism and harassment against Jews changed dramatically throughout 2023. Antisemitism surged online in the aftermath of October 7, when Hamas invaded Israel in the bloodiest single-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust. Although harassment against Jews did not increase out of proportion to overall harassment, nearly two-thirds of Jews said they felt less safe than in the previous year and two out of five avoided identifying as Jewish, including on social media, because of hate and harassment. Three quarters were exposed online to controversial messaging about the Israel/Gaza conflict. These findings may, in part, reflect the fact that antisemitic incidents continued to increase after the survey was fielded in early 2024, as well as the nature of antisemitism online: much hateful content does not target individual Jewish users, even though it is broadly on the rise.

As hate and harassment plagued online social spaces, tech platforms failed to implement best practices for abuse reporting and supporting targets. Our report card, Block/Filter/Notify, graded nine popular platforms and found that only one, Twitch, implemented tools in five key areas necessary for stopping abuse. None met all the criteria ADL and partner organizations have set based on years of research, particularly for preventing networked campaign-style harassment.

Some platforms announced efforts to address the crisis: Meta established a “special operations center staffed with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers,” while X/Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino posted on October 12 that the company had redirected resources and staff to address the crisis.

Despite these efforts, ADL continued to find rising antisemitic hate online. We found content moderation loopholes on TikTok that allowed antisemitic hashtags to remain accessible even after TikTok blocked searching for them, making it easier to find hateful videos. We also found that TikTok was not enforcing its antisemitism policies as effectively in its “Photo Mode” slideshow feature as in videos.

Hamas’ attack and Israel’s ensuing military operations in Gaza have provoked urgent questions about the role of AI in online hate and misinformation. Newly launched generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT risk lowering bars to creating and spreading hateful content and disinformation, including antisemitic conspiracy theories and election disinformation. ADL found in November 2023 that such tools are already undermining public trust in the reliability of online information.

Rising antisemitism and attacks against Jewish users are especially concerning given reductions in content moderation. At the beginning of 2023, then-Twitter relaxed its enforcement of hate speech policies and reinstated previously banned accounts. ADL found that hateful antisemitic content, such as incitements to violence, remained on the platform, even after ADL reported them as a trusted flagger (an organizational partner that can escalate reports of violative content). Other major tech companies, including Meta and Google, announced extensive layoffs that hollowed out their Trust & Safety teams.

Tracking trends in hate and antisemitism became even more difficult as some companies curtailed public access to platform data. Such data is necessary for independent researchers to evaluate platforms’ efforts to enforce their rules against hate and abuse. With the launch of ChatGPT and other generative AI, platforms like Reddit became concerned with how their vast troves of text were being mined for large language model (LLM) datasets, machine learning tools that can generate natural-sounding written content and synthesize large quantities of information. Reddit ended access to its free public API (a tool that allows developers and researchers to collect platform data directly), shutting down numerous third-party moderation tools in the process. Twitter similarly ended free access to its public API, which allowed researchers to study topics like hate and disinformation on the platform. ADL found in December 2023 that, as a whole, researcher access to tech platform data worsened, although a few platforms have made improvements, such as TikTok.

Tech companies must reverse these trends by investing in trust and safety, improving content moderation, increasing transparency and data access, and implementing our guidelines for supporting targets. Survey respondents want to see more accountability from big tech: Seven out of ten want to be told if an AI moderation tool took down content they posted, and nearly three-quarters agreed that the government should require social media platforms to disclose how they use AI in content moderation.

Hate and harassment increased against LGBTQ+ and disabled people 

Anti-transgender legislative efforts more than tripled in 2023, according to the Trans Legislation Tracker. Hateful rhetoric heated up as well from online groups like Libs of TikTok and Gays Against Groomers, often correlating with threats of offline violence. These campaigns took place online and in local communities, from school boards to Drag Queen Story Hour protests to conflicts over banning library books. In this year’s survey, online harassment surged 12 percentage points against transgender respondents to 63% from 51%, including a 15-point increase in severe harassment to 45% from 30% (which includes physical threats, ongoing harassment, sexual harassment, doxing, and swatting).

Reasons for harassment remained similar to last year’s, except for harassment due to disability, which spiked eight points to 12% from 4% the year before. The proportion of people with disabilities otherwise remained similar. People with disabilities reported a 10-point increase in harassment year over year, to 45% from 35%, including an 11-point rise in severe harassment, 31% from 20%. People with disabilities were also harassed at considerably higher rates than non-disabled, 45% versus 36%, and were 12 points more likely to experience severe harassment, 31% versus 19%.

As in past years, harassment happened most frequently on Meta’s Facebook (six out of ten people who were harassed online experienced harassment there). The platforms where experiences of harassment increased the most were both messaging apps, WhatsApp (an 11-point increase) and Telegram (a six-point increase).

Notable Findings: Adults 18+

Overall harassment

More than half of Americans have been harassed at some point in their lifetime to date.

Severe harassment in the past 12 months has increased.

Identity-based harassment

Identity-based harassment refers to harassment based on membership in a marginalized group. Transgender people were most likely to be harassed in the past 12 months for their gender identity, LGBQT+ people for their physical appearance, Black/African American and Asian Americans for their race/ethnicity, and Muslims for their religion.

LGBTQ+ people continued to experience the highest rates of harassment among marginalized groups.

Harassment by religion: Jews

Two-thirds of Jewish adults perceived themselves generally as being less safe compared to last year. A third of Jews reported being harassed for religion, and four in ten have changed their behavior online to avoid being recognized as Jewish, including a quarter who avoided engaging with content on the Gaza/Israel conflict for fear of being targeted or harassed.

Harassment by disability

People with disabilities were harassed both at a greater rate than the previous year and were more likely to be harassed, including severely, than non-disabled people.

Exposure to hate and disinformation

Marginalized groups were exposed to hate and disinformation, at greater rates than the general population.

Notable Findings: Teens 13-17

ADL has surveyed teens 13-17 since 2022. In our 2024 report, overall online harassment remained consistent from the year before, with half (50%) of teens experiencing any harassment in the past 12 months. Facebook and Instagram remain the platforms where the most harassment occurs: among teens who were harassed online, nearly two-thirds experienced harassment on Facebook (61%), trending upwards from over half (53%) the year before, while decreasing on Instagram to nearly two in five (39%) from just under half (48%). Just under three out of five (59%) of teens worried about being harassed, threatened, or otherwise targeted online in the future. 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, while 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, up seven percentage points from 72%. Teens were most likely to be exposed to disinformation about the 2020 presidential election (over a third, 37%, saw content that the 2020 presidential election was not legitimate) or that was antigay (almost a third, 31%, that LGBTQ+ people are grooming children to adopt their lifestyle). 

Overall harassment, teens

Overall harassment in the past 12 months among teens remained consistent from 2023.

Platforms where harassment happens, teens

Facebook and Instagram remain the platforms where the most harassment occurs.
 

Worry about future harassment

The majority of teens were worried about being harassed, threatened, or otherwise targeted online in the future.

Outcomes of harassment, teens

Online information or harassment sometimes leads to offline harassment.

Exposure to hate and disinformation, teens

Many teens were exposed to hate and disinformation, most often election disinformation and anti-gay rhetoric. 

Solutions and attitudes, teens

Teens were more likely this year to agree or strongly agree that platforms should ban content expressing hate or that encourages violence because of someone’s identity.