More than four in 10 internet users in the EU said they encountered hostile and degrading messages online in 2025.
A total of 42.3% of EU internet users reported seeing messages they considered hostile and degrading towards specific groups or individuals, Eurostat reported on Friday.
The EU-wide figure is an aggregate based on data from 20 countries.
In seven EU countries, more than half of internet users said they had seen such messages, with the highest shares recorded in Hungary (60.9%), Finland (56.7%) and Slovakia (56.2%).
The lowest shares were recorded in Latvia (29.3%), Greece (29.4%), Germany (33.7%) and Lithuania (33.8%).
Which groups were targeted
The most commonly reported targets were people singled out for their political or social views (33.7%), followed by racial and ethnic origin (25.5%), sexual orientation (23.4%) and religion or belief (22.8%), according to Eurostat.
Smaller shares of internet users said they saw hostile messages targeting people based on sex (16.9%), disability (11.5%), age (8.8%) or other personal characteristics (8.5%).
