Half. Just under it, really. That’s how many people in twenty EU countries saw something truly vile online in 2025. Hostile. Degrading. Aimed straight at someone’s identity. Eurostat says the numbers haven’t dipped much, even as we scroll past another quarter.
The hot spots? Ireland. Hungary. Finland. Slovakia. These nations lead the pack in encountering toxicity. On the flip side, you can breathe slightly easier in Latvia. Greece. Germany. Lithuania. Their charts look cleaner. Less poison.
But who are they yelling at?
Political opinions take the hit first. Then race. Ethnic origin. Sexual orientation. Religion. The usual targets for the online mob. Sex. Disability. Age. If you can categorize someone, someone on the internet wants to tear them down for it.
Science backs it up. Nature journal published a study pointing a finger directly at young men. They are the loudest. The most aggressive in political threads. But don’t blame the interface.
“Social media platforms may also be intertwinedwith broader socio-economic and political tensions,” the research argues. It’s not just the app. It’s the world feeding into it.
Where does the worst stuff live?
Geography matters. In the last three months of 2025, Western Europe had the worst toxicity. It was bad there. Consistently so. The European Observatory of Online Hate tracks it, and the map paints a clear picture.
Southern Europe lagged just behind. Same curve. A slight bump in late December, mirroring the west. Meanwhile, Eastern Europe? They kept it quieter. Lower scores. Less noise.
What exactly are they saying? Antisemitism often rides in on the back of racism. Tied to religion. Tied to politics. It’s ideological. It’s conspiratorial. Then comes the anti-Muslim vitriol. Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Hate against refugees. A predictable hierarchy of cruelty.
Which platforms host it all?
X wins. Or loses, depending on your perspective. It is more toxic than YouTube. Facebook. Instagram. TikTok. The data puts X at the top.
Does it matter though?
Toxicity hasn’t necessarily spiraled out of control everywhere. The scores are flat. X ended 2024 with a 0.24. 2025 is roughly the same. A tiny shift of 0.01. We are used to the medium now. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe nothing changes until we make it.
So we keep scrolling. The hate is stable. The audience is wide. And the young men keep talking.
