Online Harassment
1 40% of internet users have personally experienced online harassment. We defined online harassment as having had at least one of six incidents personally occur to someone: name-calling, efforts to be purposefully embarrassed, physical threats, harassment over a sustained period of time, sexual harassment, and stalking. (Respondents were separately asked if they had witnessed any of these behaviors occur to others online; 73% said they had). Online harassment fell into two distinct, but frequently overlapping, categories of severity – “less severe” harassment was composed of name-calling and embarrassment; 22% of internet users exclusively experienced this kind of harassment. Another 18% of internet users experienced any of the “more severe” types of harassment, including physical threats, sustained harassment, stalking, and sexual harassment.
Four-in-ten internet users are victims of  | online harassment, varying degrees of  | severity  | Among all internet users, the % who have experienced  | harassmentor not and the % who have experienced  | more vs less severe forms of harassment  | 18%  | more severe  | forms  | 40%  | have  | experienced  | 60%  | harrassment  | 22%  | have not  | only less  | experienced  | severe forms  | harrassment  | Source: American Trends Panel (wave 4).Survey conducted May 30-  | Source: June 30. American 2014 n=2,839 Trends  | PEW RESEARCH CENTER 