Roughly 56% of Americans have experienced online hate or harassment in their lifetime, according to the ADL’s most recent Online Hate and Harassment survey (ADL, The American Experience 2024). Among teens aged 13-17, lifetime cyberbullying has climbed to 58% (Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025), one in four US women report online abuse (NOW and Incogni, 2025), and 63% of transgender adults were harassed in the past year alone (ADL, 2024). The harm no longer stays online: 42% of women journalists now link digital attacks to offline abuse (UNESCO, 2025). This analysis consolidates data from the ADL, Pew Research Center, the Cyberbullying Research Center, UN Women, and 9 other primary sources to map who is targeted, where, and how the threats are changing.
TL;DR
- 56% of Americans have faced online hate or harassment in their lifetime; 33% of adults in the past year, up from 23% in 2022 (ADL, 2023-2024).
- 58% of US teens aged 13-17 have been cyberbullied in their lifetime, up from 33.6% in 2016 (Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025).
- 63% of transgender adults were harassed online in the past year, the highest of any group (ADL, 2024).
- One in four US women (25%) report online abuse; 55% of LGBTQIA+ women do (NOW and Incogni, 2025).
- Nearly half of tested multiplayer game sessions included harassment; one-third included identity-based harassment (ADL, 2025).
- 98% of deepfake videos online are pornographic; 99% depict women (Security Hero, 2023).
- NCMEC logged a 1,325% increase in CyberTipline reports involving generative AI from 2023 to 2024 (NCMEC, 2024).
- 75% of women journalists experienced online violence in 2025, up from 73% in 2020 (UNESCO, 2025).
- Only 18% of Americans say social media firms address harassment well (Pew Research Center).
- 38% of women worldwide have experienced online violence; 85% have witnessed it (UN Women, 2025).
1. The Big Picture: How Widespread Online Harassment Is
Online harassment is now a majority-lifetime experience for US adults, and the year-over-year direction is up. ADL’s annual survey shows past-year adult harassment rising from 23% in 2022 to 33%, while the lifetime figure sits at 56%. The most recent large-scale federal-style adult benchmark from Pew (41% ever harassed) predates this jump and reads as a conservative floor; the trend since has been toward more people affected and more severe incidents. Globally, the pattern holds: most women have at minimum witnessed abuse, and a large minority have been targets.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Americans harassed online in their lifetime | 56% | ADL, The American Experience 2024 |
| US adults harassed in the past 12 months | 33% (up from 23% in 2022) | ADL, 2023 |
| US adults ever harassed online / severe forms | 41% / 25% | Pew Research Center, 2021 (most recent available) |
| Women worldwide who have experienced online violence | 38% | UN Women, 2025 |
| Women worldwide who have witnessed online violence | 85% | UN Women, 2025 |
| Women who say current laws don’t sufficiently protect victims | 69% | NOW and Incogni, 2025 |
Context note: the Pew adult benchmark is flagged as most recent available (2021); ADL’s annual series is the more current US indicator. See the ADL survey and UN Women’s 2025 briefing.
2. Who Gets Targeted: Identity-Based Harassment
Harassment is not evenly distributed. Identity is the strongest predictor of who gets hit and how hard. Transgender adults reported the highest rate of any group at 63% harassed in the past year (ADL, 2024), and the gap widens for severe categories. Among US women, abuse tracks existing social inequalities: mixed-race women, Latina women, and LGBTQIA+ women all report rates well above the female average. These are overlapping vulnerabilities, not isolated ones, which is why survivors in multiple marginalized groups tend to report the most frequent and most damaging incidents.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Transgender adults harassed in the past year (highest of any group) | 63% | ADL, 2024 |
| LGBTQ+ and Muslim adults harassed in the past year | 49% and 47% | ADL, 2024 |
| US women who have experienced online abuse | 25% (1 in 4) | NOW and Incogni, 2025 |
| Mixed-race women who experienced online abuse | 37% | NOW and Incogni, 2025 |
| Latina/Hispanic women who experienced online abuse | 31% | NOW and Incogni, 2025 |
| LGBTQIA+ women who reported online abuse | 55% | NOW and Incogni, 2025 |
Outlier: women in journalism reported the highest abuse rate of any profession surveyed (55%), with women in technology second at nearly 40% (NOW and Incogni, 2025). Full breakdowns are in the NOW and Incogni survey of 5,110 US women.
3. Teens and Cyberbullying
For teenagers, cyberbullying has roughly doubled over a decade. The Cyberbullying Research Center’s nationally representative May 2025 survey of 3,466 students aged 13-17 found lifetime victimization at 58%, up from 33.6% in 2016, with a matching rise in recent-30-day incidents. A notable shift: boys now report being targeted more often than girls, reversing much prior research. About one in four teens also admit to cyberbullying someone else, a reminder that perpetration and victimization overlap heavily in this age group.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Teens 13-17 cyberbullied in their lifetime | 58% | Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025 |
| Teens cyberbullied in the past 30 days | 33% | Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025 |
| Lifetime cyberbullying rate, 2016 vs 2025 | 33.6% to 58.2% | Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025 |
| Teen boys vs girls cyberbullied in past 30 days | 36.6% vs 28.6% | Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025 |
| Teens who admit to cyberbullying others in their lifetime | 24.5% | Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025 |
Context: the most common forms in the past 30 days were exclusion from group chats (32.5%) and mean or hurtful online comments (31.6%). See the Cyberbullying Research Center 2025 data.
4. Gaming and Voice Chat
Multiplayer gaming is one of the most consistent harassment environments, and controlled testing shows how routine identity-based abuse has become. When ADL researchers played 250 hours across popular titles using usernames signaling religious, ethnic, and national identities, nearly half of the sessions included some form of harassment and one-third included identity-based harassment. Teen self-reports line up: a large share of young players have been targeted, and boys are called offensive names at higher rates than girls. Notably, roughly half of the same sessions also produced positive, prosocial play, so toxicity is widespread but not universal. We break down the voice-channel dimension separately in our voice chat toxicity statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Tested multiplayer sessions with any / identity-based harassment | ~50% / 33% | ADL, 2025 |
| Valorant and CS2 sessions with a Jewish-identity username facing identity-based harassment | 57% | ADL, 2025 |
| Teen video game players harassed or bullied while playing | 43% | Pew Research Center, 2024 |
| Teen boys vs girls called an offensive name while gaming | 48% vs 32% | Pew Research Center, 2024 |
| Teens who say harassment in games is a problem for their peers | 80% | Pew Research Center, 2024 |
| Teens who say it is a “major” problem | about one-third | Pew Research Center, 2024 |
Sources: ADL’s multiplayer gaming study and Pew’s Teens and Video Games 2024.
5. Severe Harms: Doxxing, Swatting, Deepfakes, and Sextortion
The sharpest end of online harassment escalates into real-world danger, and generative AI is accelerating it. ADL’s 2024 survey found severe harassment (physical threats, stalking, sustained abuse) reached 22% of Americans in the past year, up from 18% in 2023. NCMEC recorded a 1,325% increase in CyberTipline reports involving generative AI between 2023 and 2024, a systemic signal that synthetic media is now embedded in abuse. Financial sextortion of minors is especially lethal: NCMEC is aware of at least 36 teenage boys who died by suicide after being victimized since 2021. These figures are presented to inform protection, not to sensationalize the harm.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| US adults who have been doxxed | 4% (~11.7 million) | SafeHome.org, 2025 |
| Adults who know a friend or family member who was doxxed | 16% | SafeHome.org, 2025 |
| Swatting incidents reported to the FBI’s national database since May 2023 | 550+ | FBI, 2023 |
| Deepfake videos online that are pornographic | 98% | Security Hero, 2023 (most recent available) |
| Deepfake pornography depicting women | 99% | Security Hero, 2023 |
| Financial sextortion reports to NCMEC | nearly 100 per day | NCMEC, 2024 |
| Increase in CyberTipline reports involving generative AI, 2023-2024 | 1,325% | NCMEC, 2024 |
| Teen boys known to have died by suicide linked to sextortion since 2021 | at least 36 | NCMEC, 2024 |
Sources: SafeHome.org doxxing survey, the FBI swatting alert, NCMEC 2024 data, and Security Hero’s State of Deepfakes. Deepfake shares are flagged as most recent widely cited (2023).
6. Public Life: Journalists, Officials, and Creators
Harassment increasingly functions as a silencing mechanism against people who speak publicly. Three in four women journalists (75%) experienced online violence in 2025, and the share who self-censor on social media rose by half compared with 2020. The same chilling effect shows up in local government and in creator communities, where a near-universal share of creators can recall being targeted. When people who inform, govern, or entertain step back to avoid abuse, the cost lands on public discourse, not just individuals.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Women journalists who experienced online violence | 75% (up from 73% in 2020) | UNESCO, 2025 |
| Women journalists who self-censored on social media due to online violence | 45% (up from 30% in 2020) | UNESCO, 2025 |
| Women journalists who linked online attacks to offline harm | 42% (up from 20% in 2020) | UNESCO, 2025 |
| Women rights defenders/activists/journalists who experienced online violence | 70% | UN Women, 2025 |
| Local officeholders less willing to engage in civic activity due to threats | ~75% | Bridging Divides Initiative, Q3 2025 |
| Women local officials reporting a negative impact on willingness to engage | 83% | Bridging Divides Initiative, Q3 2025 |
| Content creators who could recall a hate or harassment incident | 95% | ACM creator study, 2022 (most recent available) |
Context: 44% of creators said they left a platform at least temporarily because of harassment, and 19% left permanently (ACM study). See UNESCO’s 2025 report, UN Women’s 2025 release, and the Bridging Divides Initiative Q3 2025 survey. The creator figure is flagged as most recent available (2022). Related reading: our creator economy statistics.
7. Where It Happens: Platforms, Reporting, and Protective Response
Most harassment happens on mainstream platforms, and confidence in their response is low. Facebook remained the single most common place harassment occurred (61%), and in a 2025 test Instagram failed to remove 93% of hateful or extremist content flagged by researchers. With only 18% of Americans rating platform response as good, many users default to self-protection: locking down profiles, using pseudonyms, and limiting what they share. Anonymity extends to identity signals like voice; some people who face harassment also mask how they sound in voice chat as a privacy measure. Platform-side, the scale of complaints is enormous, as seen in Discord’s and other platforms’ moderation volumes.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Most common platform where harassment occurred | Facebook, 61% | ADL, 2024 |
| Reported hateful/extremist content Instagram failed to remove | 93% | ADL, 2025 |
| Americans who say social media firms address harassment well | 18% | Pew Research Center, 2021 |
| Adults who use pseudonyms or aliases online to protect themselves | 47% | SafeHome.org, 2025 |
| Adults who limit what they share online for protection | 72% | SafeHome.org, 2025 |
| Adults who avoid sharing political views online for fear of targeting | 57% | SafeHome.org, 2025 |
| Bullying/harassment appeals on Facebook, Apr-Jun 2025 | 681,000 | Meta transparency data, 2025 |
Outlier: harassment migrated onto messaging apps, with ADL recording rises on WhatsApp (14% to 25%) and Telegram (7% to 13%) as reported venues (ADL, 2024). Platform confidence data is from Pew Research Center (flagged 2021).
Summary: Online Harassment by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Americans harassed online in their lifetime | 56% | ADL, 2024 |
| US adults harassed in the past year | 33% (up from 23% in 2022) | ADL, 2023 |
| Financial sextortion reports to NCMEC | nearly 100 per day | NCMEC, 2024 |
| US teens cyberbullied in their lifetime | 58% | Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025 |
| US teens cyberbullied in the past 30 days | 33% | Cyberbullying Research Center, 2025 |
| Transgender adults harassed in the past year | 63% | ADL, 2024 |
| US women who report online abuse | 25% (1 in 4) | NOW and Incogni, 2025 |
| LGBTQIA+ women who report online abuse | 55% | NOW and Incogni, 2025 |
| Black/African American adults harassed in the past year | 38% | ADL, 2023 |
| Teen gamers harassed while playing | 43% | Pew Research Center, 2024 |
| Content creators who could recall a harassment incident | 95% | ACM study, 2022 |
| Deepfake videos online that are pornographic | 98% | Security Hero, 2023 |
| Increase in CyberTipline reports involving generative AI | 1,325% | NCMEC, 2024 |
| US adults who have been doxxed | 4% (~11.7 million) | SafeHome.org, 2025 |
| Women journalists who experienced online violence | 75% | UNESCO, 2025 |
| Women worldwide who experienced online violence | 38% | UN Women, 2025 |
| Local officeholders less willing to engage due to threats | ~75% | Bridging Divides Initiative, 2025 |
| Americans who say platforms address harassment well | 18% | Pew Research Center, 2021 |
| Reported hateful content Instagram failed to remove | 93% | ADL, 2025 |
Methodology and Sources
Data was gathered by aggregating figures directly from primary reports, surveys, government alerts, and platform disclosures published mainly in 2024-2026, cross-referencing prevalence figures across multiple sources and flagging any statistic drawn from an older or single-source dataset.
- ADL (Anti-Defamation League), Online Hate and Harassment: The American Experience 2024, and 2023 survey; and Hate and Harassment in Online Multiplayer Games, 2025 - adl.org
- Cyberbullying Research Center (Hinduja and Patchin), 2025 Cyberbullying Data - cyberbullying.org
- Pew Research Center, The State of Online Harassment (2021) and Teens and Video Games Today (2024) - pewresearch.org
- National Organization for Women (NOW) and Incogni, Online Abuse of Women survey, 2025 - blog.incogni.com
- UN Women, digital violence briefings, 2025 - unwomen.org
- UNESCO, global report on online violence against women journalists, 2025 - unesco.org
- NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children), 2024 CyberTipline data - missingkids.org
- SafeHome.org, doxxing and online harassment survey, 2025 - safehome.org
- Security Hero, State of Deepfakes 2023 - securityhero.io
- FBI, swatting alert and National Common Operating Picture database, 2023-2025 - fbi.gov
- Bridging Divides Initiative (Princeton University), Survey of Local Elected Officials, Q3 2025 - bridgingdivides.princeton.edu
- Meta, transparency and appeals data, 2025
- ACM (CHI) creator harassment study, 2022
Data watch: ADL’s Online Hate and Harassment survey and NCMEC’s CyberTipline report both publish annually, so 2025 data editions are expected within the coming months; the Cyberbullying Research Center refreshes its national survey periodically (last fielded May 2025); the Bridging Divides Initiative reports quarterly; and NOW and Incogni’s women’s survey and UNESCO’s journalist survey are recurring editions likely to update next cycle.
Last updated: July 6, 2026.
We review and update this page quarterly as new data is published.