In 2025, a significant portion of internet users in 20 European Union countries reported encountering online messages that they perceived as hostile and degrading towards certain groups or individuals. This data, released by Eurostat, highlights the growing concern around online hate and intolerance.
Ireland, Hungary, Finland, and Slovakia recorded the highest rates of such experiences, while Latvia, Greece, Germany, and Lithuania had the lowest. The content targeted a wide array of groups and individuals, reflecting a complex landscape of online hostility.
Most users encountered messages aimed at people based on their political or social views, racial or ethnic background, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs. Additionally, hostile content often targeted individuals based on their gender, disability, age, or other personal traits.
A study published in the international scientific journal Nature revealed that young men are consistently the most aggressive group in online political discussions. The research also noted that social media platforms may be influenced by broader socio-economic and political tensions that exist outside of these digital spaces.
Related topics include Spain’s initiative to develop a new tool for measuring hate on social media and an analysis of the most toxic social media platforms.
In the final quarter of 2025, Western Europe showed the highest levels of online toxicity across the continent, according to the European Observatory of Online Hate. Southern Europe followed a similar trend but at slightly lower levels, with a spike toward late December that mirrored patterns seen in Western Europe.
Eastern Europe, however, experienced the lowest overall levels of toxicity. Antisemitic content was frequently associated with racist themes and often overlapped with religious and political discourse, indicating a deeply ideological and conspiratorial nature to this type of content.
This is followed by anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-refugee content. Among major social media platforms, X was identified as the most toxic, surpassing YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. However, toxicity levels on these platforms have remained stable or even declined.
For example, in 2024, X received a score of 0.24 on the EOOH scale, which indicates a medium level of toxicity. This score showed a slight increase of 0.01 compared to 2025.
