Cyberstalking statistics collected by Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA), US based online safety organization, over the period of eight years, from 2000 till 2007. The data were gathered from survivors through the demographic questionnaire published on the WHOA web site at haltabuse.org . The released data are based on a total of 2,285 completed questionnaires.

Selected findings from WHOA statistic report:
Although females are still the primary victims, with males as the primary harassers, male victims and female harassers have significantly increased over the years. According WHOA, the perceived anonymity of the internet leads more women to harass not only ex-partners, but complete strangers. Women are also being harassed by women more frequently than by men.

In 2007, WHOA registered a decrease in victims aged 18-30, from 40% to 28%, and victims aged 31-40, from 29% in 2006 down to 24%, while those aged 41 and over was about the same. However, many victims is reluctant to reveal their ages.

WHOA received complaints of victims being harassed by ex-partners, family members, co-workers, employees, fellow students, teachers, or friends, but also room-mates, customers and case involving co-owners of a business who had a falling out. However more than half of the victims did not know their harassers in 2007.

Only 44% of the cases involved victims and harassers located in the same state or country

Email still remains the primary way victims are contacted by harassers, no matter where they encountered their harasser previously, with an increase of 5% over the previous year. Email was followed by message boards (which includes forums, groups and usenet), Instant Messaging (IM), Web sites, chat, Myspace and eBay. Other ways harassment began included Craigslist, photo Web sites, online gaming, blogs, forged profiles and Facebook.


In 2007, 59% survivors reported the incident to the harasser’s Internet service provider (ISP), to law enforcement or some other authority.

(Source: 2007 Cyberstalking Statistics Released)

Publication date

Year of publication

2007

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