Harmful content on digital platforms – reporting and complaints research: Methodology

The ACMA Harmful content on digital platforms – reporting and complaints report provides information on the experience of adults who have made a complaint to a social media platform (website or app) following exposure to harmful online content. The survey explored:

• the experience of reporting or complaining to a platform operator
• details about the types of content that led people to report or complain
• the outcome of the report or complaint process.

The survey also examined online harms, including misinformation or disinformation, attitudes towards misinformation, and views on where responsibility lies for reducing exposure to such content on social media or other digital platforms.

This research is part of the ACMA research program, which gathers evidence that informs our decisions as a regulator, and ensures we are up-to-date on market developments and consumer trends.

The ACMA-commissioned research was undertaken by The Social Research Centre (SRC) using the SRC’s probability-based online panel, Life in Australia (LinA).

The ACMA main survey was preceded by a small survey used to identify platform use, incidence of exposure to harmful content, and determine necessary sample sizes for more detailed research into user reporting and complaints. This research was done in November 2022 with 4,412 surveys completed. Data from the initial survey is not included in this interactive report. The main research was conducted in January 2023, with 4,729 respondents. Of these, 830 made a report or complaint to a platform operator, 619 were directed to the full survey and 560 completed it.

The survey data is representative of the Australian population aged 18 and over.

Further information about the dataset and data quality can be found in the report’s data quality statement.

Table 1: Summary of key statistics (main survey)

Table 2: Sample profile of respondents who completed the surveys (unweighted)

Notes for reading the interactive report:

• All percentages are based on weighted survey estimates.
• Where relevant, percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number. As a result, there may be discrepancies between sums of the component items in a table or chart, and the total.
• Base sizes are shown as the unweighted number of respondents on which the weighted estimates and proportions are based.
• Categories with low sample sizes (less than n=100 interviews) should be interpreted with caution.  
• The research often asked about ‘the past 12 months’ – this is the period before the data was collected. For the survey, that is January to December 2022.
• Not every question was asked of all respondents. Some questions have been filtered depending on the respondent’s previous answer. This is noted in descriptive language in the chart’s ‘base’ notes and the corresponding methodology tables. Care needs to be taken when interpreting the results so that the data is read in the correct context.
• Some questions invited a multiple response, so the total responses may sum to more than 100%.
• In some cases, ‘don’t know’, ‘refused’ and categories with only small levels of responses are not shown or were excluded from the analysis. These are noted under the charts in the digital report.

Privacy and standards

This research was undertaken in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles contained therein, the Privacy (Market and Social Research) Code 2014, The Research Society Code of Professional Behaviour and ISO 20252 quality standards.