Abstract

Activism has never been an outlandish topic in society. Whenever unjust policies and laws arise, people tend to voice their opinions, asserting it as their freedom to speak. In institutions, the issue of activism is inevitable. However, even with noble intentions, proponents cannot escape criticisms, threats, and hate speech. This qualitative, phenomenologically based study aims to elucidate the influences of hate speech on social media on the psychological well-being of student activists. Participants were non-randomly selected. They underwent profiling of their psychological well- being status using the Standardized PERMA Profiler, followed by a semi-structured interview. Subsequently, eight clustered superordinate themes emerged in this study, revealing the overall influence of hate speech exposure on social media on student activists' psychological well-being.