Pew Research Center has been conducting surveys on online harassment since 2014. The surveys measure harassment using six distinct behaviors:

  • Offensive name-calling

  • Purposeful embarrassment

  • Stalking

  • Physical threats

  • Harassment over a sustained period of time

  • Sexual harassment

Being the target of online harassment is unpleasant, but some forms of harassment are absolutely devastating because their effects carry over into the offline world. For example, persistent online attacks on an individual’s character and politics may lead other people to avoid the target as morally deficient and irredeemably toxic. Acquaintances, friends, family members, neighbors, co-workers, and employers may no longer welcome the company of a person so maligned. This type of extreme ostracism is sometimes called being cancelled.

At the time of Pew's 2017 survey, around 41% of respondents reported they had personally experienced online harassment, and 66% had witnessed harassment directed toward others. As the Pew report notes, such exposure to abusive online behavior often had a “pronounced chilling effect” on respondents. Roughly half (47%) of those who had witnessed harassment reported they had taken actions to limit their online exposure, such as electing to stop using an online service (13%), refraining from posting something (27%) or adjusting privacy settings (28%).

Pew conducted its most recent online harassment survey in September 2020. This was the largest such survey to date: 10,093 US adults participated. The following are some key findings:

  • 41% of respondents have experienced online harassment (same as 2017)

  • 20% have experienced online harassment because of their political views

  • 11% have experienced sustained harassment

  • 31% have experienced offensive name-calling

  • 55% say people being harassed or bullied online is a major problem. 

  • 75% of online harassment targets reported their most recent experience was on social media.

If word get around, posts on social media may eventually impact one’s employability. A 2017 Harris Poll of more than 2,300 US human resource professionals found that 70% of employers used social media to screen job candidates and 37% specifically looked for what other people were posting about them. And employers weren't just looking at social media – 69% used online search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing to research candidates as well. A more recent Harris Poll found that almost 70% of 501 Canadian employment professionals reported they looked at job candidates’ social media profiles as part of the process of screening applicants. Current employees must also take care that their social media presence is unobjectionable. According to the Society for Human Research Management, employers often find out about these things and may find some online activity troubling enough to warrant disciplinary action or termination.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a survey* that asked about the fear of being ostracized as the result of social media activity. But I assume Americans of working age know that a negative social media presence could potentially destroy their careers and financial wellbeing. The prospect of being thus cast out by the employing class must make a lot of them very, very careful about what they post or tweet.

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* Of course, surveys are only one kind of evidence. Another way to gauge the fear of ostracism after a social media pile-on is to read the groveling apologies of the assumed guilty. See The Humiliating Art of the Woke Apology for examples.

References:

Don't Get "Blocked" From a New Job Because of Social Media. Express Pros October 14, 2020 

Employees May Be Fired for Hate Speech on Social Media. By Allen Smith, JD/Society for Human Resource Management August 4, 2020 

Number of Employers Using Social Media to Screen Candidates at All-Time High CareerBuilder Jun 15, 2017

Online Harassment/Pew Research Center July 11, 2017

The State of Online Harassment by Emily A. Vogels/Pew Research Center January 13, 2021

Vorderer, P. and F. Schneider (2016). Social media and ostracism.  In: Ostracism, exclusion, and rejection (Frontiers of Social Psychology); Eds. Kipling D. Williams, Steve A. Nida; (pp. 240–257). New York, NY: Psychology Press