Their efforts frequently expose them to dangers to their safety and wellbeing. Every year, Global Witness documents these harms. In our 2024 report, we found that 196 people were murdered for defending their land and homes. Many more were abducted, criminalised and silenced by threats.

Defenders often rely on digital platforms to organise, share information and campaign. In recent years, these online spaces have become many defenders’ main channels for communication with key audiences, and are frequently relied upon for community organising. However, we now know that they suffer significant harms in these online spaces, from trolling, to doxxing, to cyberattacks.

Global Witness conducted a global survey – the first of its kind – to understand defenders’ experiences online. We found that online abuse is very common among defenders who responded to the survey, and frequently translates into offline harm, including harassment, violence and arrests.

This not only hurts defenders’ wellbeing but also has a chilling effect on the climate movement, with many defenders reporting a loss of productivity and, in one case, even ending all their activism due to the abuse.

Our survey shows the challenges defenders face on social media.

The situation is so dire that 91% of the defenders who responded to our survey said that they believe digital platforms should do more to keep them and their communities safe.

It doesn’t need to be this way. Social media companies’ business models prioritise profit over user safety. They can and must do more to help protect these individuals by properly investing in algorithmic transparency, content moderation, and safety and integrity resourcing.

Improving these measures will not only keep defenders safe online but will also benefit all users everywhere.

A note on sampling: Surveying land and environmental defenders

Land and environmental defenders are a difficult group to reach en masse. Many such individuals have very real and immediate security concerns that require them to be highly careful about how they discuss their activism. No professional survey company has a panel of defenders available for polling.

We therefore had to manually contact defenders’ organisations by a variety of means and do our best to ensure that we had as many people as possible from as many different places respond to our survey.

We acknowledge that our survey sample is therefore not representative of all defenders and, given the nature of the survey, we have not sought to verify the accuracy of their statements.

This report is the first of its kind focusing specifically on the digital threats faced by land and environmental defenders, and the role that social media platforms play in this. We have built on our existing networks to reach hundreds of defenders globally.

This report is a crucial effort to uncover the nature of online harm faced by those on the frontlines of the climate movement and another puzzle piece in understanding what it means to stand in the way of climate breakdown.

These shocking and previously untold stories must prompt real action from social media platforms, who have often failed to act on reports of abuse.

Many land and environmental defenders experience abuse

92% of the land and environmental defenders who responded to our survey say that they have experienced some form of online abuse or harassment as a result of their work.

The online harms that these defenders report being subjected to range from public attacks on social media, to doxxing, to cyberattacks.

The impact of this abuse is significant, with high numbers of defenders reporting feelings of fear and anxiety for themselves and their communities. Almost two-thirds of the defenders who responded to our question on the impact of the abuse they suffered say that they have feared for their safety and almost half report a loss of productivity.

This means that there is a real risk that this online abuse is impacting defenders’ campaigning, which impedes progress on climate action and solutions.

Something clearly needs to change, and the platforms on which a lot of this abuse occurs must bear some of the responsibility.

When we dig a little deeper into the data from the survey responses, some disturbing trends emerge.

Defenders say they receive abuse on Facebook more than any other platform

Globally, Facebook is the platform that the highest number of defenders say they have suffered abuse on. The next most cited platforms for abuse are X and WhatsApp. Instagram is the fourth most common platform on which abuse has occurred.

Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram are all owned by Meta.

These results may in part reflect the popularity of Facebook overall as a platform (it has over 3 billion monthly active users, making it the largest social networking site globally).

Nevertheless, our survey has revealed that 82% of defenders who say they have suffered abuse online say that they have been abused on at least one of Meta’s three platforms.

Based on this data, Meta therefore holds a huge amount of responsibility when it comes to finding ways to address online harms to defenders.

The results shift slightly when comparing responses from different regions. For example, among defenders in Europe almost the same number reported experiencing abuse on X as on Facebook.

According to this survey, X therefore also holds a level of responsibility when it comes to addressing online harms to defenders.

We set out below a selection of first-hand accounts of defenders who agreed to speak with us after completing our survey. These accounts reflect the defenders’ personal experience and are given in the defenders’ own words.

Read the full report at: Global Witness