“It’s a Lost Case”: A Qualitative Study Investigating Perceptions of Bystanders on Online Hate Speech

Bystanders of online hate speech (OHS) can play a crucial role in the continuation of OHS. Therefore, it is important to understand what bystanders think, feel, and do when witnessing OHS. Lived experiences of bystanders could help in understanding which factors determine, according to bystanders’ interpretations, their attitudes towards and behaviors in response to OHS. To this aim, in-depth interviews were conducted among 25 young adult social media users. A thematic analysis revealed that bystanders define OHS in different ways. Many feel that this behavior is ‘unnecessary’. Bystanders often feel the need to distance or ignore when witnessing OHS. They experience many barriers to perform positive bystander behavior, including costing too much effort and being anxious of others’ evaluations. Due to the omnipresence of OHS, bystanders feel that OHS is normalized, however, some consider this as disturbing and feel OHS causes polarization in society.