Celebrated as the quintessence of freedom of expression, the internet is also the place where negative or inappropriate comments circulate without pause. In the most serious cases, they amount to outright hate speech — hurled by individuals hiding behind a screen, indifferent to the consequences. Even today, in Italy, a woman is far more likely than a man to find herself at the centre of these attacks. This is what emerges from data published to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, which falls on 25 November.

Amnesty International's Hate Barometer

The Hate Barometer is a survey that the NGO Amnesty International has already carried out in the past, for the 2018 general elections and the 2019 European elections. For this new edition, it selected twenty Italian public figures who stand out in the fields of politics, sport, entertainment and journalism — ten men and ten women. For five weeks, between November and December 2019, it monitored the posts they published on Facebook and Twitter, the comments they received, and the messages in which other users mentioned them by name, for a total of 42,143 pieces of content. Each of these was assessed individually by a team of sixty activists, assisted by a group of experts.

Women are the hardest hit by hate speech

The figures reveal a thought-provoking truth: online hatred is not an exception, but a constant. Of the more than 42,000 pieces of content examined, 65 per cent had a negative character. In most cases these amounted to simple criticism or controversy, but 14 per cent were offensive or discriminatory — or, in 0.7 per cent of cases, could be fully classified as hate speech, meaning incitement to hatred targeting specific groups at risk of discrimination.

When the influencer is a woman, a certain segment of users appears to give free rein to aggression. First and foremost, 6.3 per cent of women are subjected to personal attacks, which in 2.5 per cent of cases constitute hate speech. This is a far rarer occurrence for men: the percentage of personal attacks does not reach 4 per cent, and the hate speech figure stands at 1.6 per cent. Of the personal attacks directed at female influencers, one in three is sexist.

Social media: girls don't feel safe

There is widespread awareness of the issue among the very young too. This is revealed by the Osservatorio indifesa run by Terre des Hommes and ScuolaZoo, which surveyed 5,700 people aged between 13 and 23. Seven in ten young people believe there is a well-founded cause for alarm in Italy regarding femicide and violence against women — a figure that rises to nine in ten among girls.

In this respect, the digital sphere plays a dominant role. 16 per cent of respondents say they have been the victim of cyberbullying, and 36 per cent have received sexually charged comments from strangers online. Almost half the sample identifies the web as a place of discrimination; and, when asked to describe what "sexual harassment" means, 59 per cent cite revenge porn and inappropriate comments received on social networks.