Associated Press
A new study says African-American adults are facing more harassment online than other races and ethnicities in the United States.
A recently released Pew Research Center survey says 25 percent of African-Americans adults — or 1 in 4 — have faced some sort of harassment online based on race or ethnicity.
Only 10 percent of Hispanics and 3 percent of whites say they have faced online harassment.
Fifty-nine percent of black internet users — or nearly 3 out of every 5 — say they have experienced some kind of online harassment, compared with 48 percent of Hispanics and 41 percent of whites.
Nearly 2 out of 5 black internet users — or 38 percent — say they are called offensive names.
According to the study, men and women also experience and respond to online harassment in different ways.
Overall, men are somewhat more likely to experience any form of harassing behavior online: 44 percent of men and 37 percent of women have experienced at least one of the six behaviors this study uses to define online harassment.
In terms of specific experiences, men (30 percent) are modestly more likely than women (23 percent) to have been called offensive names online or to have received physical threats.
By contrast, women – and especially young women – encounter sexualized forms of abuse at much higher rates than men. Some 21 percent of women ages 18 to 29 report being sexually harassed online, a figure that is more than double the share among men in the same age group, where only 9 percent of men report it.
Pew Research Center contributed to this report.
