Social media often feels overwhelmingly toxic, but the reality is more restrained. Research finds that most harmful content comes from a tiny fraction of users who post frequently and loudly.
Many Americans believe that hostile behavior dominates online spaces, but research suggests this belief is far off the mark. People often assume that nearly half of users on large platforms regularly post abusive or aggressive comments. In reality, severe online toxicity is much less common.
For example, Americans estimate that about 43% of Reddit users write highly toxic comments, even though evidence shows that only about 3% actually do. This large gap between perception and reality can quietly encourage pessimism, making people feel that society is more hostile and morally divided than it truly is.
How Researchers Measured Online Toxicity Perceptions
To understand why these beliefs are so widespread, researchers Angela Y. Lee, Eric Neumann, and their colleagues conducted a survey of 1,090 American adults using the online research platform CloudResearch Connect. The study compared what people think about harmful online behavior with existing platform level data from prior research. The goal was to see whether public perceptions match what actually happens on major social media sites.
The findings showed that people consistently overestimate harmful behavior. Participants believed that toxic commenters on Reddit were 13 times more common than they are in reality. They also greatly overestimated the spread of misinformation on Facebook. On average, participants guessed that 47% of Facebook users share false news stories, while research indicates that only about 8.5% do. These results suggest that many people think harmful content is the norm, even when it represents a small fraction of overall activity.
