When digital spaces turn hostile: online toxicity and its professional toll on agricultural extension workers in Bangladesh.

This study looks at online hostility toward agricultural extension officers. It uses a Vietnamese coconut tree project in Bangladesh as its case. The analysis combines coded comments (3,618 across Facebook and YouTube) with interviews with eight extension staff. Comments were coded for toxicity, insults, identity attacks, and threats. Officials faced substantial toxic content, reflecting broader distrust of formal expertise. This hostility caused real harm: distress, reduced motivation, self-censorship, and withdrawal from online work. Employer pressure to stay active online made it worse. So did content commercialization and political pressure to promote unproven technologies. The study recommends safeguards such as monitoring, reporting protocols, and digital-literacy training. It argues these findings matter as extension work becomes more digital and AI-driven.