Toward an Understanding of the Characteristics of Secondary School Cyberhate Perpetrators

Abstract

While the Internet offers many opportunities to access information, training and communication, it has created new grounds for risks, threats and harm. With the rise of populism and extremism, new forms of cyberbullying emerge, more specifically cyberhate. The Internet has become a privileged tool to disseminate hatred, based on racism, xenophobia, bigotry, and islamophobia. Organized groups use the internet as a dissemination tool for their ideas, to build collective identity and to recruit young people. The presence of these groups has been facilitated worldwide thanks to technology. Yet, little attention has been granted to the way the Internet eases the activities of individuals who promote and propagate hate online. The role they play in spreading racism, xenophobia and bigotry is paramount as they regularly comment online about news and events, interacting with like-minded people with impunity because the web prevents people from being easily identified or controlled. While literature on exposure to hateful contents and cyberhate victimization is growing, little is known about who the perpetrators really are. A survey with young people aged 12-20 (N = 1,889) was completed in France and forms the basis of this article. It provides an understanding of the characteristics and associated variables of cyberhate perpetration. The Structural Equation model shows that cyberhate perpetration is heavily related to time spent online, victimization, belonging to a deviant youth group, positive attitudes toward violence and racism. Results from the SEM further suggest that people who suffered from online victimization will themselves have a greater tendency to belong to deviant youth groups. Multiple mediation analysis further suggests that trust in institutions may however prevent young people from belonging to a deviant youth group and decrease positive attitudes toward violence, thus diminishing the tendency to perform hateful aggression.

Understanding the Bystander Audience in Online Incivility Encounters: Conceptual Issues and Future Research Questions

“…If they witness uncivil comments carried out by in-group (vs. out-group) members against out-group (vs. in-group) members, which may trigger in-group favoritism, they are likely to justify (or even join) the incivility. This is in line with the finding that when adolescents observed their peers spread online hate and rate it as socially admirable behavior, they were more likely to post and share hateful materials against targeted social groups [67]. But this may not be the case when incivility is devaluated by all means; for example, if in-group members' uncivil behavior is deemed to damage the whole group's impression (i.e., black-sheep effect) [68], more intervention by in-group bystanders will follow.…”

Associations between Witnessing and Perpetrating Online Hate in Eight Countries: The Buffering Effects of Problem-Focused Coping

“…ICT offers many opportunities and tools for adolescents to perform developmental tasks [8]. With the worldwide increase in populism and extremism, however, new online risks, such as online hate, have emerged [4,19,39]. To inform the development of online hate prevention programs, we examined the relationship between being a bystander to and a perpetrator of online hate, and whether assertive and technical coping moderates this relationship, in a large sample of adolescents from eight countries.…”

“…In the same study, 16% of American, 10% of Finnish, 12% of British, and 4% of German participants reported that they have been personally targeted by cyberhate [18]. More recently, a study with French participants aged 11 to 20 years found that around 57% of participants had been exposed to online hate, approximately 10% were victimized through online hate on social networking sites, and 5% published or shared online hate material [19].…”

“…Consequently, online hate perpetration might be explained by observational learning. Online hate is often conducted with the aim of influencing values within a peer group and establishing group identity [19]. Thus, when adolescents observe that their peers spread online hate and learn that online hate is appropriate or admirable behavior that can increase their social status and acceptance, bystanders might be more likely to participate and share, post, or forward hateful or denigrating online material against social groups.…”

School Bullying, Perpetration, and Cyberhate: Overlapping Issues

“…The questionnaire was based on the EU Kids Online survey (Livingstone et al 2011) and commonly used by other researchers (e.g., Blaya and Audrin 2019;Blaya and Gatti 2010). As previously shown by Blaya and Audrin (2019), this questionnaire yields good reliability indices (α = .95, ω = .96).…”