Quarterly Insights: Online Hate and Toxicity Trends (Q4 2024 Report)
This report is the first in a series providing a quarterly analysis of online harm trends. This edition examines patterns observed in October, November, and December 2024.
Data for October, November, and December was based on 3,7 M messages in 24 languages, across 6 social media platforms: Reddit, X, 4chan, Gab, YouTube, and Facebook.
Toxicity over time
This timeline illustrates the average toxicity level on social media in Q4 2024.
Toxicity levels averaged around 0.2, with a slight increase in early October, before declining to their lowest point (0.13) at the beginning of November. From mid-November, toxicity levels stabilised at 0.2, peaking at 0.26 in the final week of December. On average toxicity is slightly trending upwards.
Regional breakdown
This section highlights online toxicity trends across four European regions: *Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, and Southern Europe.
Western Europe recorded the highest average toxicity (0.2), while Northern Europe had the lowest (0.07).
Southern Europe saw significant fluctuations, with toxicity dropping from 0.25 in October to 0.13 in early November.
*Our regional distinction in Europe is based on the languages monitored via the dashboard, grouping countries accordingly to reflect linguistic and geographical patterns. The monitored languages include Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Lithuanian, and Swedish (Northern Europe); Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Russian, Macedonian (Central and Eastern Europe); French, German, English, Dutch (Western Europe); and Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and Arabic (Southern Europe).
Due to data limitations, the number of messages collected varies significantly by region. Northern Europe had the fewest messages (N: 51,751), followed by Southern Europe (N: 124,530), Eastern Europe (N: 138,805), and Western Europe, which recorded the highest volume (N: 3,339,210).
VLOPs vs non-VLOPs
The following graph compares the frequency of toxic messages on Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs)**—including Facebook, Instagram, X, and YouTube—versus non-VLOPs such as 4chan, Gab, and Reddit.
4chan had the highest average toxicity (0.39), more than double of Facebook’s (0.15), which recorded the lowest level.
Gab followed with a moderate toxicity average of 0.29, reinforcing the trend that fringe platforms foster more toxic discourse than mainstream ones.
YouTube, which maintained a low-to-medium toxicity level (0.21), experienced a gradual increase in November, rising from 0.16 to 0.29.
**For more information on platform classification, please explore this website.
Hate speech by category
This table outlines the type of hate speech across our baselines - Gender, Islam, Judaism, LGBT+, Refugees, and Roma.
Among messages containing hate speech about Islam, 254.51% include religious mentions, the highest overall, followed by Judaism at 114.73%. Racism appears in 192.31% of hate speech about Judaism and 113.28% of that about Islam, highlighting severe racialised hostility towards these religious minorities. Hate speech about refugees carries political narratives in 150.12% of cases, reflecting the politicisation of immigration discourse. Hate speech targeting the Roma community includes racist elements in 137.57% of cases, while messages about the LGBTQ+ community contain the highest proportion of sexist language (116.15%)
Semantic analysis per platform
This table showcases the distribution of semantic categories of hate speech across major online platforms: 4chan, Facebook, Gab, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube. Notable extremes include Politics-related hate on Gab at 244.47%, the highest overall, demonstrating its centrality to politically driven hate narratives on the platform. Similarly, Racism on 4chan (102.13%) and YouTube (81.67%) underscores widespread racial hostility in these spaces. Religion-related hate on YouTube reaches 138.05%, highlighting targeted hostility linked to religious identity. Sexism on 4chan is high at 65.89%, revealing the platform’s entrenched misogynistic culture, with Gab also showing elevated levels (28.43%). Threats on Gab (67.58%) and Ridicule on 4chan (38.85%) further illustrate their respective inclinations toward incitement and mockery. In contrast, Facebook exhibits relatively lower percentages across categories, except for a notable presence of Politics-related hate (30.55%), emphasising its role in politically charged discourse. These figures illustrate significant variations in the intensity and focus of hate speech across platforms, with Gab, 4chan, and YouTube emerging as hotspots for multiple forms of hostility.