A majority of people who are bullied on social media do nothing about it, a survey focused on the media in Malta has indicated.
More than one in four people who took part in the survey said they have been bullied on social platforms, but only a fifth of the victims blocked the perpetrator. More than half of those bullied did nothing.
Online bullying is more prevalent among younger people, the survey found, with more than 57% of 16- to 25-year-olds saying they felt bullied through social media. By comparison, 15.1% of those aged 56 to 65 and 17.7% of participants aged over 66 said they felt bullied online.
However, only 15.8% of those who were bullied filed a police report, while 21.5% blocked the perpetrator and 4.3% closed down their account. More than 58% did not take any action.
The survey, carried out by statistician Vincent Marmarà among a cohort of 600 people aged 16 and over, has a confidence interval of 95% and margin of error of 4%. Respondents were surveyed last October.
Knowledge of social media
The study also found that a significant proportion of people have yet to understand or engage with Facebook's privacy settings, which allow users to restrict who can see the things they post.
While just under 42% of respondents said they were aware of the settings and had used them, 38% said they did not know about them. A further 6% said they knew of them, but did not use them. Knowledge about security features seems to decline with age, the responses indicated.
Nearly 70% are aware that social media adverts are based on the preferences of internet users, and more than half said they are not bothered by the fact that corporate companies have knowledge about their internet use.
And around 72% are also aware that when they upload footage or images online, the material could be stolen by third parties and used elsewhere.
Online insults and hate speech
More than three-quarters of respondents classified offensive language on Facebook as "hate speech".
Gozitans were those who were most likely to do so, at 93%.
Almost one in every three respondents - 62.2% - believe people who bully or insult others on social media should be prosecuted.
People aged 26 to 35 were the most likely to agree with pressing charges in such cases, though all age groups bar one were mostly in favour of court action.
The exception were respondents aged between 16 and 25 - the cohort most likely to report having been bullied on social media: 58.3% of these respondents said people should be free to write whatever they please.
Labour Party voters are more likely than Nationalist Party ones to agree with court action in such cases.
At least 67% of those who voted PL in 2017, compared to 55.4% of those who voted PN believe people should be taken to court over Facebook comments.
Do you comment publicly about the news?
The absolute majority of respondents said they do not feel the need to comment publicly about the news, with only 8.9% saying they feel they should.
Gender seems to have some link with the inclination to react publicly: while 13.1% of men feel they should react, only 5.4% of women think the same. A further 24.9% of men – compared to 17.8% of women – feel they should, at times, comment publicly.
Online comment boards remain the most popular way of expression.