A Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday found that as many as four in 10 adults have been subjected to online harassment and that men and women suffer from different forms of harassment.
"In broad trends, the data show that men are more likely to experience name-calling and embarrassment, while young women are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and stalking," the study stated.
Twenty-seven percent of all of those who responded to the survey said they had been called offensive names. As many as 22 percent said someone had tried to "purposefully" embarrass them. Others said they felt threatened, were stalked, or sexually harassed.
More than nine of every 10 of the 2,849 Web users surveyed said the "online environment allows people to be more critical of one another, compared with their offline experiences."
The report came two days after Monica Lewinsky, calling herself "patient zero" for online reputation destruction, gave a speech about the immediate aftermath of when revelations of her affair with then-President Bill Clinton surfaced online in 1998. She said she was called a "tramp, slut, whore, tart, bimbo, [and] floozy" and wished she could die.
The Pew study, meanwhile, found that 66 percent of those subjected to online harassment said it occurred on a social networking site or app. Another 22 percent reported that it occurred in the comments section of a website. The report also said that 16 percent of the harassment occurred during online gaming. Ten percent of respondents said reddit was the source; six percent said an online dating site was to blame.
The survey added that age and gender "are most closely associated with the experience of online harassment."
The report said that young women bore the brunt of the most severe types of online harassment:
Young women, those 18-24, experience certain severe types of harassment at disproportionately high levels: 26% of these young women have been stalked online, and 25% were the target of online sexual harassment. In addition, they do not escape the heightened rates of physical threats and sustained harassment common to their male peers and young people in general.
Men in general, the report said, "are more likely than women to encounter name-calling, embarrassment, and physical threats."
The report said that 38 percent of those experiencing online harassment reported that a "stranger" was responsible and that another 26 percent said they "didn't know the real identity of the person or people involved."
About 60 percent of the survey takers said they ignored their most recent incident of harassment. About half of those who took action "confronted the person online" and "unfriended or blocked the person responsible."
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