More than half (52%) of Portuguese children and young people surveyed in a report claim to have seen online hate messages at least once in the last year, a proportion that rises to 72% among adolescents aged 16 to 17 years.
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02/09/2026
by
Lusa
Dand according to the report “New uses, new risks? Digital rights of children and young people (9-17 years)”, exposure to hate speech increases significantly with age: about a quarter of children between the ages of nine and 11 refer to having found this type of content, while among young people aged 16 to 17 the percentage reaches 72%.
The report considers exposure to online hate messages or comments a central dimension of digital risks, both by their frequency and the associated emotional impact.
The contents covered include hostile messages addressed to persons or social groups on the basis of, among other characteristics, gender, ethnic origin, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or disability.
Differences between boys and girls are reduced when overall exposure is considered, although differences are noted according to socioeconomic status.
Exposure is reported by 45% of young people of low socioeconomic status, 56% of those of moderate level and 52% of those of high level.
The report also identifies an increasing exposure to other user-generated negative content, framed by researchers in an emergency of new cognitive and informational risks.
Among the contents analyzed are conspiracy theories, adult pornography, violent or disgusting images, challenges likely to cause serious injury, drug-related content, and messages about forms of self-aggression.
In the case of conspiracy theories, 37% of respondents claim to have been exposed to this type of content in the past year. The percentage is 47% among young people aged 16 to 17.
The report stresses that a significant part of this exhibition occurs unintentionally, reinforcing the role of platforms and their recommendation systems in the circulation of these contents.
According to one of the responsible for the report, Cristina Ponte, researcher at the NOVA Communication Institute (ICNOVA), “all this increase in the dramatization of emotions [...] makes the algorithms feed, this is all linked to artificial intelligence, something that has intensified a lot in recent times,” Lusa said.
The results are part of the EU Kids Online 2025, a national survey conducted with 2,111 children and young people aged nine to 17 years, who analyzed the uses of the internet, digital skills and literacy, digital rights, risks and forms of family and school mediation.