One in seven authors experienced aggression or harassment last year

In a survey on aggression and harassment towards authors by Ipsos I&O commissioned by WritersSafe, 14% of authors said they had experienced one or more incidents in the past year. Half of these have even experienced multiple incidents. The majority experienced verbal aggression (12%).

Authors face by far the most verbal aggression, threats and harassment via social media (68%). Particularly via Facebook and X, a quarter via e-mail.

Half of the authors who experienced an incident indicated that the incident was also discriminatory in nature, targeting the author's sex or gender and targeting political beliefs (both 14%).

Seven in 10 authors report having experienced effects from aggression and harassment. Such as on social media use (32%) and enjoyment of writing (26%).

Almost no one reported the incident to the police or filed a police report. No author reported it to WritersSafe. WritersSafe is unknown to three quarters of writers. Only a fifth have heard of WritersSafe.

Female and male authors experience aggression and harassment about equally often, but the nature, severity and consequences of the incidents differ. Women experience the most recent incident as serious and experience it more often during personal contact. Women also experience discrimination based on gender or sex more often.

Breakdown by type of author (writers, translators, illustrators and publishing staff) shows that one-fifth of writers experience aggression. 18% of writers experienced one or more forms of aggression and harassment most often in the past year, among translators it is two per cent.

Martijn David of the Group of General Publishers:

Miro Lucassen of the Authors' Association:

About WritersSafe

WritersVeilig was founded in June 2024 by the Group of General Publishers and the Authors' Union with the aim of strengthening the position of writers against violence, aggression and intimidation. SchrijversVeilig is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and is hosted by PersVeilig, which uses its expertise to support authors and publishers.

To better understand the nature of aggression and its impact on writers, WritersSafe commissioned this survey. A total of 1,689 writers completed the questionnaire.

Read the full research report here.