The growing challenge of digital hate speech requires an understanding of its complexity, scale, and impact. Research on experiencing digital hate speech has so far been limited to the roles of personal victim, observer, and perpetrator, with a focus on young people. However, research on hate crimes suggests that vicarious victimization may also be relevant due to its negative impacts. In addition, the lack of knowledge about the older generation neglects the fact that older people are increasingly seen as vulnerable to digital risks. Therefore, this study introduces vicarious victimization as an additional role in research on digital hate speech. Prevalence rates for the four roles are examined across the life span, using a nationally representative sample of adult Internet users in Switzerland. Additionally, all roles are correlated with life satisfaction and loneliness, two stable indicators of subjective well-being. The results show that in this national population, personal victimization and perpetration are less common (<7 percent), whereas observation and vicarious victimization are more common (>40 percent). Prevalence decreases with age in all roles. As expected, multivariate analyses show that both forms of victimization are negatively related to life satisfaction and positively related to loneliness, with these effects being stronger for personal victimization. Similarly, being an observer and being a perpetrator correlate negatively, but not significantly, with well-being. This study contributes to a theoretical and empirical distinction between personal and vicarious victims and provides insight into their effects on well-being in a population largely unexplored in terms of age and national representativeness.

中文翻译：

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跨年龄段的数字仇恨言论体验及其对福祉的影响：瑞士的一项全国代表性调查。

数字仇恨言论面临的日益严峻的挑战需要了解其复杂性、规模和影响。迄今为止，关于体验数字仇恨言论的研究仅限于个人受害者、观察者和肇事者的角色，重点是年轻人。然而，对仇恨犯罪的研究表明，替代受害由于其负面影响也可能具有相关性。此外，对老一代人缺乏了解，忽视了老年人越来越容易受到数字风险影响的事实。因此，本研究引入替代受害作为数字仇恨言论研究中的附加作用。使用瑞士成年互联网用户的全国代表性样本来检查这四种角色在整个生命周期中的流行率。此外，所有角色都与生活满意度和孤独感相关，这是主观幸福感的两个稳定指标。结果表明，在全国人口中，个人受害和实施行为不太常见（<7%），而观察和替代受害则更为常见（>40%）。所有角色的患病率随着年龄的增长而降低。正如预期的那样，多变量分析表明，这两种形式的受害都与生活满意度呈负相关，与孤独感呈正相关，其中对个人受害的影响更为强烈。同样，作为观察者和作为犯罪者与幸福感呈负相关，但并不显着。这项研究有助于从理论上和实证上区分个人受害者和替代受害者，并深入了解其对年龄和国家代表性方面很大程度上尚未探索的人口福祉的影响。