Online bullying and hate speech are on the increase in Germany, according to a new study of internet users published on Thursday.
Responding to a questionnaire, 78 per cent of users said they had faced hate speech, up 11 percentage points on the year.
The survey of 1,008 private internet users aged 14 and older was carried out by the Forsa polling institute on behalf of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous.
Conducted in the first week of June, it revealed that the 14-26 age-group was most severely affected with 96 per cent experiencing hate speech.
As many as 39 per cent of those surveyed said that hate speech predominated on the internet over factual contributions.
The number of users taking action against hatred is also rising.
By contrast, the proportion of users acknowledging that they are behind hateful remarks remained at 1 per cent.
"The results show that we have a lot of bullying online, but only a few bullies. And this also shows that there are options for getting a grip on the increasing hatred on the internet," said Tobias Schmid, director of the media authority in the state.
