Hidden from the Rainbow: An Anlysis of Online LGBT Targeting

• In Event: The Increased Risk of Victimization in Immigrant and LGBQT Communities

Abstract

While the online world has opened up a wealth of resources of LGBT individuals, it has also made it easier to target them with hateful or degrading material. Especially for LGBT youth, all too often being the target of online hate can have tragic consequences. We examine online and offline factors that contribute to the targeting of hate based on sexuality using data collected during the week of January 28, 2015 with funding from the National Institute of Justice.

Descriptive results show that 23% of our sample reported being the target of hateful material online at some point. Specifically, 6% reported that the targeting pertained to their sexual orientation, the third most common response in our data. A logistic regression analysis was used to investigate factors that led to targeting based on sexuality. We found that individuals living in the South were more than three times as likely to be targeted, and respondents living in rural areas were more than twice as likely to be targeted. Other results show that increased social network usage, antagonistic behavior online, online confrontations, and a willingness to divulge personal matters online all increase the likelihood of being the target of hate based on sexuality.

Authors

• Joseph Rukus, Arkansas State University

• Matthew Costello, Arkansas State University