Gorrell, G. orcid.org/0000-0002-8324-606X, Bakir, M.E., Roberts, I. et al. (2 more authors) (Submitted: 2020) Online abuse toward candidates during the UK general election 2019 : working paper. arXiv. (Submitted)
Abstract
The 2019 UK general election took place against a background of rising online hostility levels toward politicians and concerns about its impact on democracy. We collected 4.2 million tweets sent to or from election candidates in the six week period spanning from the start of November until shortly after the December 12th election. We found abuse in 4.46\% of replies received by candidates, up from 3.27\% in the matching period for the 2017 UK general election. Abuse levels have also been climbing month on month throughout 2019. Abuse also escalated throughout the campaign period.
Abuse focused mainly on a small number of high profile politicians. Abuse is "spiky", triggered by external events such as debates, or certain tweets. Abuse increases when politicians discuss inflammatory topics such as borders and immigration. There may also be a backlash on topics such as social justice. Some tweets may become viral targets for personal abuse. On average, men received more general and political abuse; women received more sexist abuse. MPs choosing not to stand again had received more abuse during 2019.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 The Authors. Article available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share-Alike Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Computer Science (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number European Commission - Horizon 2020 654024; 825297 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 24 Mar 2020 15:17 |
Last Modified: | 24 Mar 2020 15:37 |
Published Version: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.08686v2 |
Status: | Submitted |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:158708 |