Related papers: Online Abuse toward Candidates during the UK Gener…
Concerns have reached the mainstream about how social media are affecting political outcomes. One trajectory for this is the exposure of politicians to online abuse. In this paper we use 1.4 million tweets from the months before the 2015…
We extend previous work about general election-related abuse of UK MPs with two new time periods, one in late 2018 and the other in early 2019, allowing previous observations to be extended to new data and the impact of key stages in the UK…
Against a backdrop of tensions related to EU membership, we find levels of online abuse toward UK MPs reach a new high. Race and religion have become pressing topics globally, and in the UK this interacts with "Brexit" and the rise of…
The UK has had a volatile political environment for some years now, with Brexit and leadership crises marking the past five years. With this work, we wanted to understand more about how the global health emergency, COVID-19, influences the…
Engaging with online social media platforms is an important part of life as a public figure in modern society, enabling connection with broad audiences and providing a platform for spreading ideas. However, public figures are often…
Numerous politicians use social media platforms, particularly X, to engage with their constituents. This interaction allows constituents to pose questions and offer feedback but also exposes politicians to a barrage of hostile responses,…
COVID-19 has given rise to malicious content online, including online abuse and hate toward British MPs. In order to understand and contextualise the level of abuse MPs receive, we consider how ministers use social media to communicate…
Online Social Networks represent a novel opportunity for political campaigns, revolutionising the paradigm of political communication. Nevertheless, many studies uncovered the presence of d/misinformation campaigns or of malicious…
Today, an estimated 75% of the British public access information about politics and public life online, and 40% do so via social media. With this context in mind, we investigate information sharing patterns over social media in the lead-up…
Online abuse and threats towards politicians have become a significant concern in the Netherlands, like in many other countries across the world. This paper analyses gender differences in abuse received by Dutch politicians on Twitter,…
Adversarial interactions against politicians on social media such as Twitter have significant impact on society. In particular they disrupt substantive political discussions online, and may discourage people from seeking public office. In…
This work is produced by researchers at the Neuropolitics Research Lab, School of Social and Political Science and the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. In this report we provide an analysis of the social media posts on…
Technology-facilitated gender-based violence has become a global threat to women's political representation and democracy. Understanding how online hate affects its targets is thus paramount. We analyse 10 million tweets directed at female…
As COVID-19 sweeps the globe, outcomes depend on effective relationships between the public and decision-makers. In the UK there were uncivil tweets to MPs about perceived UK tardiness to go into lockdown. The pandemic has led to increased…
The advent of social media changed the way we consume content favoring a disintermediated access and production. This scenario has been matter of critical discussion about its impact on society. Magnified in the case of Arab Spring or…
Social media provides a critical communication platform for political figures, but also makes them easy targets for harassment. In this paper, we characterize users who adversarially interact with political figures on Twitter using…
The #MeToo movement has catalyzed widespread public discourse surrounding sexual harassment and assault, empowering survivors to share their stories and holding perpetrators accountable. While the movement has had a substantial and largely…
Social media are now a routine part of political campaigns all over the world. However, studies of the impact of campaigning on social platform have thus far been limited to cross-sectional datasets from one election period which are…
Social media is commonly used by the public during election campaigns to express their opinions regarding different issues. Among various social media channels, Twitter provides an efficient platform for researchers and politicians to…
Social media has become an indispensable channel for political communication. However, the political discourse is increasingly characterized by hate speech, which affects not only the reputation of individual politicians but also the…