Navigating hate: comparison of female university students’ experience of hate speech in social media and real life in Bangladesh

Purpose This study aims to compare the experiences of female students with hate speech on social media platforms and in real life and to measure the influence of academic and demographic characteristics on their attitudes toward hate speech. The study conceptualizes hate speech broadly to include gender-based hostility such as bullying, trolling, body shaming and sexual harassment. Design/methodology/approach The target population of the study consisted of 260 female students studying at a public university campus who used various social media platforms. Data were collected through an online survey using a convenience sampling method. Descriptive analysis, paired-sample t-test and different non-parametric tests were used to analyze the data with SPSS version 20. Findings The results revealed that most of the students became victims of hate speech more than once (2–3 times) in their life. In both social media and real life, students face bad comments, harassment, trolling and body shaming equally, mainly for their gender, appearance and skin color, resulting in no significant difference in hate speech on social media and in real-life environments. The results also found no significant difference in students’ attitudes toward hate speech based on their academic level, current residence, age and religion; however, some differences were observed based on their place of origin and faculty. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first attempt in a developing country like Bangladesh to compare female students’ social media and real-life hate speech experiences through an integrated gender-based hate speech framework that includes sexual harassment as one of its forms.